RACHMANINOV
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
(1873–1943)
London Philharmonic Orchestra – Symphony No 2 in E minor
Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, 1996
Rachmaninov once said, “In the old Russian saying ‘I have chased three hares’ [composing, conducting and playing the piano]. Can I be certain that I have captured one?’ For much of his life, following the Russian Revolution, he was able to chase but one of these, whilst carving out a career as an itinerant virtuoso pianist in America. But it cannot be doubted that composing music was his greatest love, and that there was only one point in his life when he ever seriously contemplated abandoning the art.
The story of his depression following the failure of his 1st Symphony and his subsequent cure from creative inertia by the psychologist Dr Dahl is well known. His newly roused talents found expression in the well-loved Piano Concerto No 2 (1901) and his first ten Piano Preludes: it seemed that Rachmaninov the composer was on the threshold of a new and more benevolent destiny. It was at this time, however, even as his music was gaining widespread fame, that he was persuaded to accept a contract to conduct Moscow’s Grand Theatre Opera. He was no doubt tempted by the prestige of the post and the knowledge that one of the leading artists there was Chaliapin, but the appointment left him little time to compose.
It became increasingly obvious that if he was to devote himself to truly creative work he must seek solitude elsewhere. Thus it was that in 1906 he relinquished his conducting post and set out for a new home in Dresden with his wife and infant daughter. They moved into a villa in a quiet part of the city, and it was in these tranquil surroundings that he produced a large part of his most imaginative music, including the tone poem The Isle of the Dead, his 1st Piano Sonata and tonight’s work, the 2nd Symphony.
The composer’s happy circumstances are no doubt responsible for the symphony’s prevailing mood of optimism. Though the opening movement’s darkly brooding tones reflect a peculiarly Russian melancholy (and perhaps some painful recollection of Rachmaninov’s earlier depression), the adagio breathes a luxurious serenity, whilst the movements which surround it are charged with a raw energy and athletic pulse which are almost unique in his works.
The whole symphony is unified by the use of a motto theme which appears at the very beginning of the work. The simple step-wise structure of this theme is a clear instance of Rachmaninov’s indebtedness to Russian Orthodox plainchant – an idea reinforced later in the first movement when a slight metamorphosis changes the motto into the Dies irae theme, the motif which so obsessed the composer throughout his creative life. However, Rachmaninov does not apply this motto device in the same way as Tchaikovsky used the ‘Fate’ theme in his 4th Symphony; here it serves to integrate accompaniments, as a counterpoint to more important musical ideas, or as the basic material from which new themes will be fashioned.
The long, dark-hued introduction opens the symphony with the motto theme played by the cellos and basses. The warmer second subject starts as a lyrical dialogue between woodwind and strings. A dramatic ascending sequence then unleashes a flood of almost apocalyptic violence, with outbursts from the brass. The recapitulation, however, anticipates the optimism of the following movements by dispending with the minor key first subject. The second subject appears resplendent in the divided strings, with the original motto sounding distinctly from the woodwind.
The short scherzo is in some ways the most remarkable movement of the symphony. Certainly the crisp brilliance of its orchestral colouring finds no parallel in the composer’s works until the late Symphonic Dances, and indeed it is the unbridled energy of peasant dance which is evoked here right from the first virile theme on the horns and its spirited answering phrase on the violins.
The adagio is one of Rachmaninov’s most inspired melodic creations. Its idyllic mood can be best compared with the serene nature-reverie of his songs ‘How Fair This Spot’ or ‘Before My Window’, but here the composer weaves a lyrical meditation of heavenly length.
In the finale, the minor key is overthrown by its equivalent major. Rachmaninov shows himself here in his most triumphant mood. In the increasingly tense excitement which precedes the recapitulation, he evokes the sound of bells in a troop of descending scales, each marching at a different speed from its neighbours. It may be that the composer was here recalling the bell-peals of the magnificent St Petersburg churches, in which he first grew to love the singing of Orthodox plainchant, which was, of course, the prime musical inspiration behind the whole symphony.
Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op 43
Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, 1996
Rachmaninov’s flight from Russia at the outbreak of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 was the only alternative to possible imprisonment or death, or at the very least the total strangulation of his artistic genius. As a landowner descended from a family of aristocrats, he lost everything he owned, for his entire capital was invested in his country estate at Ivanovka. His musical reputation in Russia did not long survive his departure, and his works became prohibited in all higher colleges of music, Rachmaninov himself being designated as an enemy of the proletariat and a tool of bourgeois capitalism. The most damning opprobrium was that Rachmaninov had been a manufacturer of foxtrots! Nonetheless this did not prevent the new state from making capital out of Rachmaninov’s music published for sale abroad.
Thus it was that, having been known as a respected composer whose artistic lineage could be traced through Chopin, Liszt and Tchaikovsky, he was faced at the age of 45 with the need to rebuild his career as a concert pianist, purely though financial necessity.
Fortunately Paderewski’s retirement from the international concert scene (to devote himself to politics) had provided Rachmaninov with a splendid opportunity. His subsequent tours of the United States were soon to relieve him of all financial worries; indeed, after a short time he became far better off than he had ever been as a Russian landowner. By 1925, with financial security achieved, he was able once again to devote himself to composition.
Nevertheless, exile from his Russian homeland had deeply affected the well-springs of his creativity. The hectic schedule of his concert tours, too, so at variance with his love of nature and need for contemplation, had taken its toll. It was not until he went to live in the Villa Senar by the shores of Lake Lucerne that he was able, once again, to write with the same rhapsodic quality he had shown during the years in Russia.
It was here that the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934) was composed. The theme is from Paganini’s Caprice, op 1 no 24 for unaccompanied violin. This impish tune had already been used as a source of inspiration by Liszt and Brahms, the latter also employing it in an immense set of variations for piano solo. Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody is both a work of great brilliance and dreamy reflection, the whole being knit together so as to provide a concert-like structure, even though the work is designed to be played without a break. There is a hint of the demonic in the original theme, and the sense of the supernatural is reinforced by Rachmaninov’s introduction of a new motif – the Dies irae – played in bare chords on the piano against an accompaniment by the bassoons and cellos in Variation 7. This medieval plainsong melody obsessed Rachmaninov throughout his later years and he had already used it in his symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead, as well as in The Bells. In its treatment here, perhaps, he is recalling Berlioz’s use of the theme in his Symphonie Fantastique. (An echo of this may also be detected in certain passages in Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10).
In the 18th Variation (roughly equivalent to a concerto’s slow movement) the mood changes abruptly to one of reflective romanticism. This andante cantabile section is one of Rachmaninov’s best-known melodies, and many have speculated how this lovely tune could in any sense be derived from Paganini’s original theme. In fact, Rachmaninov has here merely employed a familiar musical device known as ‘inversion’ which, roughly speaking, means that the shape of the original musical phrase is turned upside down.
In Variation 19 there is a return to the pianistic brilliance of the opening. The virtuosity increases until in Variation 23 the theme returns in its original shape. There is one ominous interjection of the Dies irae theme before he ends the work with an almost impertinent flourish.
The Rhapsody shows Rachmaninov to be the direct heir to Schumann in its juxtaposition of extroverted and reflective expression, but whereas in Schumann we know that the tension between these two aspects of his personality became totally destructive, in Rachmaninov we feel that he is able so to master these disparate elements that they become a source of totally life-enhancing invention.
Moscow State Symphony Orchestra – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op 43
Eden Court, 1997
Rachmaninov was by no means the first, nor even the last, to write a set of variations on Paganini’s A minor Caprice for solo violin – Liszt and Brahms before him and Lutoslawski, Benny Goodman and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber after are just some of those who have found inspiration in it. For Rachmaninov, it was to be his last major work for orchestra, but it happily and amply demonstrates his gift for building big, perfectly proportioned musical structures full of lyrical melody, wit and great internal strength. After seventeen years in exile from his beloved Russia, and frequent periods of doubt over his own abilities, here he is at the height of his powers and revelling in the freshness and power of his inspiration.
Unusually for Rachmaninov, the overall shape of this piece was clear in his mind several months before he got down to work. Composition began in early July 1934 at Senar, his new villa near Lucerne in Switzerland, and within seven weeks the Rhapsody was finished. He premiered the work himself on 7 November at Baltimore with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and thereafter had a stunning success with it wherever it was performed.
His ‘programme’ for the piece, if at first only subconsciously, was nothing less than the life story of Niccolo Paganini himself (1782–1840), a violinist of such stunning power and demonic aspect that legend had it he must have sold his soul to the Devil. His cadaverous looks added substance to this fantasy – he was tall and thin with a hooked nose and a cadaverous face, and many liked to pretend that the fourth string on his Guarnerius was made from the sinews of his wife whom he had allegedly throttled with his bare hands… When, three years after the Rhapsody’s composition, Rachmaninov approached Fokine with an idea for a ballet, he suggested that the Rhapsody would act as a perfect vehicle for conveying this theme, and in his correspondence with the choreographer he outlined certain details – that the Dies irae quotation represents the Evil Spirit with whom the violinist made his infernal pact; that the central variations, 11 to 18, show the love interest; that the 19th Variation represents the triumph of Paganini’s art in a fiendish pizzicato, and so on. Fokine enthusiastically took him up on most of these suggestions, and the resulting ballet was premiered at Covent Garden under Antal Dorati on 30 June 1939. The abrupt ending of the orchestral version was modified so that the ballet closed – unforgettably – with the beautiful Variation 18, leaving, it is said, not a dry eye in the house.
The Rhapsody falls into three sections like a conventional concerto, whose moods are respectively fast, slow and vigorous.
The first section, variations 1–10, explores the Paganini theme in full, replaying it in curious styles with the piano, as it were, marking it or mimicking the violinist’s own style of playing. At Variation 7 the pace relaxes a little and Rachmaninov introduces the first dark strains of his favourite Dies irae theme, which, as luck would have it, provides a natural counterpoint to the Paganini tune. Its sparse presence in the work as a whole, however (it appears only in the 7th, 19th, 22nd and 24th variations), indicates that Rachmaninov was using it mainly as a metaphor for Paganini’s legendary pact and not a fundamental source for musical material.
The ‘slow movement’ is introduced by means of a piano cadenza with string accompaniment in Variation 11 followed by a melancholy Minuet in D minor, the music’s first principal departure from the hitherto dominating key of A minor. Variations 16 and 17 create a mood of anxious expectancy which lead finally from the murky key of B flat minor into the blazing sun of D flat for the rapturously lyrical Variation 18, a modification of the inverted theme first hinted at in Variation 14 in F major.
The finale begins at Variation 19 with a toccata-like passage marked quasi pizzicato, evidently intended to recreate one aspect of the violinist’s fabled technique. The piece builds like a continuous crescendo, by way of Variation 22’s use of a descending bell motif, another favourite Rachmaninov ploy. Here perhaps it is recalling Paganini’s disputes with the church which, even after his death, refused his body burial for five years. At the conclusion of the truly devilish Variation 24, the Dies irae makes one last ominous reappearance – just before the final, wryly humorous flourish in which the pianist signs off with a nod of recognition to his prodigiously talented and much-maligned predecessor.
St Peterburg Philharmonic Orchestra – Vocalise, op 34 no 14
Waterfront Hall, Belfast, 1997
The fourteen songs which make up opus 34 were completed by Rachmaninov on his beloved estate of Ivanovka by mid-June 1912, to texts suggested to him by his confidante, the poetess Marietta Shaginyan. Eleven of the songs were dedicated to individual singers and tailored to suit their specific talents. Vocalise, although completed with the others in the set, was revised in September 1915, but it quickly became the public’s favourite. In this case the dedicatee was the coloratura soprano Antonina Nezhdanova, whom Rachmaninov himself accompanied at its highly successful premiere under Koussevitsky in January 1916.
The simple but impassioned stream of wordless melody includes, in its opening bars, repeated references to Rachmaninov’s favourite Dies irae four-note theme, and the underlying atmosphere of mourning may be seen as the composer’s melancholy reflections on the carnage and waste of the Great War. But precisely what was in the composer’s mind is, as ever with Rachmaninov, a mystery. When Nezhdanova herself, perhaps seeking a clue as to the song’s meaning, expressed regret at the absence of words, Rachmaninov gallantly but evasively replied, “What need is there of words when you will be able to convey everything better and more expressively by voice and interpretation alone than anyone could with words?”
The less familiar orchestral version presented tonight was later made by the composer himself at the suggestion of Nikolai Struve.
Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor
The story of Rachmaninov’s depression following the failure of his 1st Symphony and his subsequent cure from creative inertia by the psychologist Dr Dahl is well known. But it became increasingly obvious that if he was to devote himself to truly creative work he must seek solitude elsewhere. Thus it was that in 1906 he relinquished his conducting post at Moscow’s Grand Theatre Opera and set out for a new home in Dresden with his wife and infant daughter. It was in these tranquil surroundings that he produced a large part of his most imaginative music, including the tone poem The Isle of the Dead, his 1st Piano Sonata, the 2nd Symphony and the 3rd Piano Concerto.
This latter work was especially written for his forthcoming tour of America, and he premiered it himself in New York on 28 November 1909 with the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch. On 16 January 1910 he repeated the performance at Carnegie Hall, this time with Mahler conducting. It received a warm though not uncritical reception, the main problem apparently being its length and technical difficulty. The composer made a few small cuts later, mostly in the finale, though the fashion these days is to give a reading of the complete work.
As a concerto, Rachmaninov’s Third has the reputation of being among the most physically and technically demanding by any composer. Knowing he would be its principal exponent, at least at first, Rachmaninov had no fears about his own ability to play it, though he wrote at least two versions of the cadenza in the first movement, one of fifty-nine bars, the other of seventy-five, consisting chiefly of chords and considerably more difficult. When the composer recorded the piece himself with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy at the start of the war, he chose to play the shorter of these two.
The 3rd Piano Concerto is a fine illustration of Rachmaninov’s ability to create long, perfectly balanced melodies in a large-scale work whose three movements are linked despite their wide variety of moods. They combine lyricism and excitement with great technical virtuosity, and although the work took a while to catch on, possibly due to this very complexity, it is now recognised as one of the landmarks of the concert hall, and one with which any soloist worth his salt must at some point come to terms.
Symphony No 2 in E minor
The 2nd Symphony, like the 3rd Piano Concerto, also dates from Rachmaninov’s highly productive period in Dresden. The composer’s happy circumstances are no doubt responsible for the symphony’s prevailing mood of optimism. Though the opening movement’s darkly brooding tones reflect a peculiarly Russian melancholy (and perhaps some painful recollection of Rachmaninov’s earlier depression) the adagio breathes a luxurious serenity, whilst the movements which surround it are charged with a raw energy and athletic pulse which are almost unique in his works.
The final draft was only completed early in 1908, just in time for its premiere in St Petersburg on the 16 January. Rachmaninov himself conducted both this concert and the work’s Moscow premiere the following week. After the notorious fiasco of the 1st Symphony in St Petersburg eleven years before, it was with the utmost gratification and relief that Rachmaninov experienced the success of this new work in the same city.
As in the previous symphony, the Second makes use of unifying motifs to hold the work together and the ever-present, if subtly disguised Dies irae theme is never far below the surface of the orchestration. Constructed on a large scale, the 2nd Symphony is, in fact, one of the longest Russian symphonies ever composed before the Revolution. But its enormous popularity has shown that for audiences everywhere it is also one of the most movingly lyrical and emotionally satisfying.
