MasterWorks 5 – From Russia with Love



Sergey Rachmaninov
1873-1943

Sergey Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Following the success of his Second Piano Concerto in 1901, Sergey Rachmaninov’s career took off and evolved successfully in three directions. He continued to compose, including his Symphony No. 2 in 1906-07, he traveled extensively both at home and in Western Europe as a virtuoso pianist, and he was a sought-after conductor. He tried to apportion his time evenly among the three.

Rachmaninov composed the Piano Concerto No. 3 in 1909 for a long-planned first tour of the United States where he would be featured in the exhausting capacity of wearing all three hats. He was ambivalent about the tour and significantly pressed for time. He did not begin the Concerto until June and took with him a silent keyboard on which he practiced assiduously during the crossing. The tour and the Concerto were an artistic and financial success. And just as Haydn had been wooed to make his permanent home in London after the success of his Salomon, or London, symphonies, both the Boston and Cincinnati Symphonies offered Rachmaninov their podiums, which he turned down. Ironically, in 1917, he was forced into exile in Paris, his fortune confiscated and his estate demolished during the violence of the Russian revolution. He continued to tour the Untied States, primarily as pianist, and with the imminence of war in Europe in 1939, he eventually relocated with his family in Beverly Hills where he died.

The Concerto premiered on November 28, 1909 with the New York Orchestra under Walter Damrosch and repeated two months later with the same orchestra under Gustav Mahler. Unfortunately, we know nothing of what transpired between these two giants. The Concerto gained immediate and enduring popularity, especially with pianists. It requires immense stamina from the soloist and attests to the composer’s melodic inventiveness and to his outstanding pianistic abilities.

The opening movement is particularly rich in thematic material with new ideas and moods introduced throughout. Over the throbbing orchestra, the piano enters on the third measure with a sad melody of narrow range, the melancholy mood prevailing throughout the elaborate development of the theme.

The staccato second theme, introduced by the strings,

is converted by the piano into a flowing lyrical, endless melody that increases the emotional tension by delaying the cadence.

The extremely long written-out cadenza takes nearly a third of the entire movement and is briefly joined halfway through first by a flute, then by the other woodwinds. Finally, the opening theme returns and the movement ends in a whisper.

The Intermezzo is a fantasy on a single theme presented first on the oboe,

followed with a variation by the orchestra and finally by the soloist in the major mode.

The orchestra and piano continue in numerous permutations and variations that vacillate between moodiness and passion. A faster and livelier waltz-like variation, a duet between the piano and solo clarinet, brightens the mood towards the end of the movement.

But the oboe leads the movement back to the opening mood, interrupted by an exuberant display of pianistic brilliance that leads without pause into the Finale.

The third movement is in modified sonata form, using a transformation of the second theme from the first movement in a comparable role here.

Rachmaninov saves the most sparkling writing for the piano in this culminating movement. It includes several elaborately decorated variations on both the opening and second themes.

In a surprise move, a broad romantic melody of entirely new music announces the conclusion.



Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
1840-1893

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, “Little Russian”

Throughout his creative career, Tchaikovsky’s inspiration went through extreme cycles, tied to his frequent bouts of deep depression and self-doubt. It was in his symphonies where he most overtly expressed his emotions. Symphony No. 2 is an exception. Composed in 1872 at a time that his social life was flourishing and his optimism was at its peak. He rubbed shoulders with the élite of Moscow’s literature and theatre. A friend recalled Tchaikovsky as a prankster, lavishly greeting total strangers on the street, improvising jesting verses in a monastery, or dancing and singing the mazurka from Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in a railway carriage, to the shock of some lady passengers.

Tchaikovsky was an ardent nationalist whose tremendous melodic gift enabled him to develop his own themes. Despite the many folk elements in most of his symphonies, he only occasionally used borrowed melodies. He also did not espouse the nationalist movement in music, symbolized by such composers as Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov. Instead he used his symphonies as a vehicle to express his personal anguish and depressive moods.

Symphony No. 2 is an exception. Composed in 1872 and extensively revised in 1879, it incorporates three folk songs originating in what the Russians called Little Russia but called by the local inhabitants (and everyone else) Ukraine. Tchaikovsky spent the summer of 1872 at his sister’s estate near Kiev, where he heard the local songs in the streets of the small town. The title “Little Russian” was not coined by the composer but by a friend, although Tchaikovsky approved of it. Also uncharacteristic of Tchaikovsky's other symphonies, the general mood of the work is mostly upbeat.

The first movement opens and closes with the melancholy notes derived from the song “Down by the Mother Volga,” played on a solo French horn.

The main theme of the allegro is really a short motive that gradually emerges as the section progresses. It is the composer’s own, but retains the modes and spirit of Russian folk music.

After a lyrical second theme,

Tchaikovsky brings back the "Mother Volga" theme in a vigorous transformation.

The second movement, marked Andantino marziale is a slow march that Tchaikovsky took from his discarded opera Undine, which had been rejected by the Imperial Opera Company of St. Petersburg and eventually destroyed by the composer. A pianissimo ostinato on the timpani accompanies the entire movement.

The central part of the movement is another folk tune.

The Scherzo third movement is highly chromatic and has tremendous rhythmic drive. The phrases are dovetailed, creating a tense and unstable meter.

The Trio for the woodwinds is in duple time, in contrast with the rapid triple meter of the Scherzo.

IIt is in the fourth movement that Tchaikovsky showed his true nationalistic colors. It is an exuberant orchestral display, based on the Ukrainian folk song “The Crane.” But the grand orchestral fanfare that opens the movement exploits the fact that the folksong begins like the Russian national anthem, "God save the Tsar."

It then turns into a rapid dance with the accent on the off beat.

The dance begins pianissimo, gradually adding instruments. The second theme for the strings provides a contrast,

and Tchaikovsky goes on to combine the two themes in the development.

A stroke from a great gong heralds the coda and a proper "imperial" sounding finish. This was the movement that the composer liked best and garnered accolades from his colleagues of the Russian nationalist movement.

3 flutes (2 piccolos), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, tamtam), strings