Pianist Ivan Sokolov may be a champion of the most advanced forms of abstract modernism in Russia (coming from not only Russian composers but also those from Western Europe and the United States); but the program he prepared for today’s Noontime Concerts™ recital (“San Francisco’s Musical Lunch Break”) at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral was solidly rooted in the nineteenth century. He began with four of the character pieces from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons (Opus 37a), a set of twelve with one for every month of the year. These were commissioned by Nikolay Matveyevich Bernard, who also suggested a subtitle for each month, all of which Tchaikovsky accepted as appropriate. While these subtitles were omitted on the program sheet, they provide a useful guide to the logic of each of these short pieces. Bearing that in mind, Sokolov selected the following four months…
