A Musical Offering by Nikolai Rakov: Nine Pieces for Piano Four-Hands

The article provides an overview of the “Nine Pieces for Piano Four-Hands” cycle of the late period of the work of Nikolai Rakov, a Russian composer of the 20th century. Allusions are actively used in the cycle, which consists of pieces of different genres, and the infl uence of various composing schools is noticeable. Having passed a long creative path, the composer seems to embody the need to create a musical offering to his great predecessors and contemporaries, involving expressive means of various styles. Masterfully using the arsenal of piano tools for children’s performance, he achieves the most vivid performing solutions and a variety of orchestral colours. At the same time, the culmination of the cycle and the fi nale are native Russian pieces that give the cycle a vividly national fl avour.