More than just miniatures

Apart from a few larger melodramatic works, the Russian composer Vladimir Rebikov, who was born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in 1866 and died in Yalta in 1920, became known as a miniaturist. Many of his most original piano pieces make do with just one printed page and are limited to a single melodic or harmonic idea, comparable to preludes.

In his early Salonesque works, the musician, who trained in Moscow and Berlin, took Tchaikovsky and German late Romanticism as his starting point before developing his own piano style around 1900, which he expanded with impressionistic means of sound. He began experimenting with stereotypical fourths, whole-tone scales and short ostinati and even conquered new polytonal territory.

Les démons s'amusent and the barren Chansons blancheswhich are to be played on the white keys, could have been written by Satie. The radically anti-romantic Figurine chinoise provides a fine example of New Objectivity with just 24 bars.

Rebikov's often disturbingly short character pieces are far more than just sonically attractive miniatures. They are just as suitable for piano lessons as they are for the study of harmony, but above all for concert programs with a pictorial theme. They are also documents of a long-forgotten pioneer of modern music.

Markus Heinze has provided a representative selection of 15 easy to moderately difficult pieces with useful fingerings and intelligent commentaries, which occasionally also contain playing instructions.

Vladimir Rebikov, 15 Piano Pieces, edited by Markus Heinze, F 95053, Fr. 21.90, Robert Forberg (Ricordi), Berlin 2014