Four Waltzes

Music steeped in mystery & unpredictable harmonies
In my opinion, the Moscow-born player / composer Mikhail Sytchev (b. 1971) has never written a boring or ordinary note of music. Everything that has come my way has been fabulously bizarre, full of mysterious, nightmarish, and, often, strangely harmonized music that is always tonal, but in a style all his own. If it ever reminds me of anything, it might be a little in the style of Nikita Koshkin's Usher Waltz and also a bit of Prokofiev's inclination to seemingly put the 'wrong' harmonies with the notes.
This set of four waltzes is large, with each having considerable length, and none being a straight waltz-not a predictable harmony can be seen anywhere here. The first is "Rendez-vous," but this is not a light-hearted love tryst with a hauntingly sad waltz tune you might expect from the title, but something else entirely. The mysterious opening leads to a theme that is deceptively romantic, but doesn't last long. Soon, the oddly placed "wrong" notes make themselves known, and it becomes clear that this rendezvous is not a pleasant experience for at least one of the people involved. The writing constantly evolves, and there's scarcely a chance to rest before the piece is racing off elsewhere. A quiet set of harmonics bring the piece to an uneasy close. "Gnome," a scherzo, has a repetitive idea as the basis for its first theme, which adds to its bizarre, but tonal, music world. Replete with sudden sforzandi and glissandi, it again inhabits a strange, Tolkien-like universe where the unexpected is the norm. Once again, it seems to be closing on a quiet idea, before a final slam really finishes the piece off. "Fantasia" is even faster a presto-and is possibly the hardest to play of the four, although at these speeds and with these nearly virtuosic ideas, none of them are easy. There are elements of pizzicato alternating with normal tones, and lots of chasing up and down the strings to the point where there's almost no room for thought. A deceptively slower paced section with romantic overtones doesn't stay very long, and the opening theme returns to close it. The final "Paris" is vivo, with meno mosso contrasting portions in the middle. Again, Sytchev's vision of Paris is not the romantic one we might assume, but one where the night life has many hidden secrets and dark goings-on. There are numerous contrasting sections in this final waltz, as with the other three, and a coda that seemingly finishes in the wrong key; no obvious ending here!
The difficulty factor in this wonderful and bizarre set is high, but these pieces are all fabulously entertaining. This is one of the best publications I have seen in the past year, and I will be returning to it time and again. This would be great in concert, and I hope some talented players take it up.'
Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)