Nikolai Tscherepnin

Divertissement op. posth.

Nikolai Tcherepnin, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, composed this Divertimento in 1943. The work was first published after his death. As the title suggests, the piece is both playful and serene, though its unusual design differs from the kind of structure the genre normally entails. Thus there are two short outer movements in B flat major which encapsulate lengthy solo passages for each of the three instruments. The length of these 'Improvisations' (incidentally, they are written without bar lines) means that the composition resembles a large tripartite cadenza. The brief 'tutti' movements in the neo-classical style give the impression of being no more than a pleasant prelude and postlude.