Hyperion Records

The Suite No 3, completed in the spring of 1971 but not performed by its dedicatee until December 1974 owing to severe restrictions on his movements imposed by the Soviet authorities in the wake of his friendship with the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, pays tribute to Rostropovich’s Russian heritage in its format of a set of variations on four traditional Russian themes. The first three are taken from Tchaikovsky’s volumes of folk song arrangements (‘Under the apple tree’, ‘Autumn’ and ‘The grey eagle’) and the fourth is the Kontakion, or hymn to the departed. The final suite works in reverse, as it were, by delaying the statement of these themes until the very end, after all the variations have been heard. Although the movements follow one another without a break, each variation is a self-contained character piece. After the initial Introduzione, there follows a Marcia, Canto, Barcarola, Dialogo, Fuga, Recitativo, Moto perpetuo and concluding Passacaglia.

from notes by Mervyn Cooke © 2013