Program Notes
Program Notes by
Barbara A. Renton
SERGEY RACHMANINOFF
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
Sergey Rakhmaninov (current English
spelling) was born in Semyonov, Russia, 1873 and
died, an American citizen, in Beverly Hills,
California, 1943.
From the first, he exhibited unusual musical
talent and was admitted to the St. Petersburg
Conservatory at an early age, later to the Moscow
Conservatory to study piano and composition.
His graduating “piece”was a one-act opera,
Aleko, that won him the highest marks, a gold
medal, and the applause of Tchaikovsky.
It was produced almost immediately in Moscow,
1893. He
began his career as a concert pianist, always
composing between concert tours, later adding
conducting engagements.
His first American concert tour was in 1909.
The Revolution and the need to support his
family propelled him into leaving Russia; he settled
in New
York in 1918 – at least for a few years.
Rakhmaninov excelled in all three aspects of
his musical endeavors.
As a performer (until the very last days of
his life), he can be heard in recordings and piano
rolls made through the 1920s.
These show that he possessed a formidable
technique, incredible muscle strength and dexterity,
and a sense of clarity and
phrasing that he placed at the intelligent
service of the particular composition. His repertory
included Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt,
Tchaikovsky, Debussy, among others, and his own
works.
As a composer, his works met with great success,
many of which have continued to be favorites with
today's audiences, particularly his symphonies,
Symphonic Dances, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,
and his second and third piano concertos.
Pianists enjoy playing his Preludes
(especially the one in C# minor); choruses revel in
his setting of Edgar Allan Poe's The
Bells (the closing movement of his choral
symphony), and sopranos in his Vocalise.
Chamber works, songs, tone poems, operas,
etc. poured from him when he could get the time.
Until recently it was fashionable to view his
compositions as second-rate or as examples of
“fading Romanticism” because of his gift for melody
and his “lush” sonorities (which were greatly
imitated in film scores), but newer studies show
that he grew to adapt
20th-century techniques, rhythms and
harmonies with great mastery as they suited his
expressive needs.
His works have never left the performing
repertory.
The Piano Concerto No. 3 was completed
for Rakhmaninov's first American concert tour and
was premiered to great acclaim by the New York
Symphony under Walter Damrosch, followed immediately
by a New York Philharmonic performance under Gustav
Mahler.
The pianist-composer, Abraham Chasins, has remarked
of the solo part, “None but the stoutest heart and
the staunchest equipment can carry it off.”
This is evident in the first movement,
Allegro ma non tanto, which uses
sonata form as an organizing principle: Exposition
(of themes) – Development (playing with themes
and/or fragments; also changing keys which indicates
to the listener that things are off-base) –
Recapitulation (restatement of original themes in
the principal key).
But Rakhmaninov's strategy is far different
from the so-called “classical.” Here, after a very
brief orchestral introduction, the piano announces
the main theme of the Exposition and then claims a
directing role, so that the movement becomes a piano
rhapsody to which the orchestra is invited.
Rakhmaninov unrolls an encyclopedia of
pianistic possibilities: shifting moods, cascades of
tones, dense chords, passages in which each of the
10 fingers must be capable of independent weight,
stress and speed, while simultaneously the pedaling
must be controlled to a fraction of a second in
order to maintain sonority but ensuring clarity in
the rapid movement of tones.
The listener can fairly easily hear the piano
present the main theme (in simple octave unison
notes) and then the repetition by the orchestra with
a florid piano accompaniment.
The orchestra begins the Development after a
long piano “bridge” but the piano is not silent for
long. The Recapitulation begins, as in the
Exposition, with the piano playing simple
unison-octave phrases but soon this section attains
dramatic life through tempo increases and rhythmic
activity, arriving, as the concerto form dictates,
at a point where the soloist plays an extended solo
bravura cadenza, intended to show the performer's
mastery of technique.
Rakhmaninov published two cadenzas, each
extremely difficult and each showing the mastery of
technique that he could command.
One unusual feature: toward the end of the
cadenza, the flute, oboe and clarinet are allowed to
join, briefly, in succession.
Then it is on to a closing section (Coda) in
which the piano again introduces the opening theme
in unison octaves and closes with the last word,
quietly.
The second movement, Intermezzo, in
Adagio tempo – is, in formal structure, a theme and
rhapsodic set of variations.
The main theme is first suggested by the
violins, then fully announced by the oboes followed
by other woodwinds, then the strings, but it is
still the piano that determines what will happen in
subsequent variations.
Throughout the movement, Rakhmaninov uses the
expressive technique of small crescendos and
decrescendos on a single note or short phrase.
Rhapsody-like, the listener is swept along
from variation to variation, each delineated by
tempo changes and different pianistic patterns –
with one exception: the return of the main themes of
the Exposition from the first movement – announced
by the clarinet and bassoon, then flute and strings
with the piano “dancing” attendance.
The finale is heralded when the main
Intermezzo theme is reintroduced by oboes and
bassoons, then clarinet and bassoons, then the
flute, then an announcement in tragic tones by the
oboe and clarinet,
followed by the horn. From there the movement
flings itself to a
close – a
statement of the main theme by the violins,
followed by a sweeping climax, heading without a
break into the third and final movement.
The Finale is loosely structured in
sonata form.
The first theme, having strong rhythmic
elements, is introduced by the piano and woodwinds,
then expanded and varied at some length by the
piano, which eventually introduces a second,
contrasting, lyrical theme.
This theme also is given varied treatment by
the piano.
The return of the first, rhythmic theme
signals a Development section, that is treated more
like a series of variations based on different piano
figurations.
In the midst of the activity, the piano, the
flute and then the horn hearken back once again to a
theme from the first movement - just before the
Recapitulation (strings, horns & woodwinds – piano
is silent).
The tempo continues to increase until a
timpani roll announces a Coda in which the piano is
permitted one more cadenza before the rapid and
energetic close.
Has anyone remembered to breathe?
JEAN SIBELIUS
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43
Jean
(Johan Julius Christian) Sibelius was born in
Hämeenlinna, Finland (Swedish:Tavastehus) in 1865
and died in Järvenpää, Finland in1957).
His works owed much to the northern landscape
of his country as well as to its mythic saga,
Kalevala.
His reputation as a major figure of Finnish nationalism was bestowed
upon him by Finnish critics and media at the first
performance of his symphonic-choral tone poem,
Kullervo,
based on the life and death of the so-named hero of
the
Kalevala.
One of the
incidental pieces from this work is well-known today
as Valse triste.
Originally Sibelius set out to become a virtuoso
violinist, but his failure to gain a position in the
Vienna Philharmonic, coupled with his music studies
in Vienna and his increasing acquaintance with the
breadth of European concert music, sent him in the
direction of composition, which he had already begun
but not pursued to a great extent.
Finland's struggles against Russian
domination fed his imagination even as it provided
support – in the form of a state subsidy for some
years – to enable him to continue composing.
In support of the patriotic protest movement,
Sibelius wrote a score for six “historical
tableaux,” one of which garnered so much enthusiasm
that he published it as a separate work – the famous
Finlandia.
In 1914 he was invited to the United States to conduct one of his works
in Norfolk, Connecticut; during that trip he
received an honorary doctorate from Yale University.
In 1920 he was offered the Chair of
Composition at the Eastman School of Music but
turned it down.
Sibelius drew inspiration from Liszt,
Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Berlioz, Bruckner and the
so-called “Viennese Classical”composers.
In turn, his music had an influence on
Wilhelm Stenhammar, Arnold Bax, William Walton and
Samuel Barber.
Many of his works are developed in an organic
manner from powerful germinal motives. Robert
Layton, an author of studies about Sibelius, avers
that “Within a few seconds, it is possible to
identify Sibelius' sound world.” His output includes
seven symphonies (an eighth - the last – is assumed
to have been destroyed by the composer), symphonic
poems and fantasias, a violin concerto, incidental
music for stage, and many songs and choral works.
He was a perfectionist, constantly revising
and reworking his music but ceased to bring forth
any significant new works in the last 30 years of
his life. The national Conservatory in Helsinki
bears his name and a new assessment of his works has
brought increasing admiration for his unique
approach to musical forms, structures and harmony.
Sketches for what was to become Symphony No.
2 were begun by Sibelius during a stay in Italy in
the summer of 1901 under the shadow of political
tensions between Finland and Russia when Finnish
patriotic fervor was running high.
The first performance, with the composer
conducting, took place in Helsinki in March 1902.
The revised and final version premiered in
Stockholm in 1903 and was performed in Chicago in
1904.
From the first, the Finns heard in it something of
an expression of their yearning for selfhood and
liberty, which served to ensure Sibelius' standing
as a national hero.
It immediately entered - and has continued in
the international repertory to great acclaim.
Each performance tests the technical capacity
and endurance of each section of the orchestra.
The first movement, Allegretto, is in
sonata form: Exposition (of three theme groups)-
Development (fragmentation, reweaving,
transformation of Exposition
material)-Recapitulation (return to Exposition
material).
Although there is no “program” (story),
Sibelius' way of investing even the smallest
thematic idea with an emotional persona can create a
novelistic sense of characters (Exposition) to which
something “happens” - some threat or crisis
(Development) – and then an ending in which all the
loose ends are tied up (Recapitulation).
The opening repeated notes for the string
section are not an “introduction” but an integral
thematic idea, A, that will be juxtaposed and then
related organically to the other themes, returning
in the Finale.
A folk-like melody, B, is introduced by
clarinets and oboes and echoed by the horns, which
enhance the pastoral sound. Trills from the flutes
over a timpani roll lead to a “yearning” motive
played by the violins.
Soon a pizzicato string passage, a crescendo
and a quickening of the tempo leads to a strong and
sturdy C group with A as well.
A silence followed by a held oboe note begins
the Development section during which the rhythmic
motion and discords convey a sense of threat.
At the close of the Development the brass
instruments enter with a sound of triumph,
fortissimo, but a rapid diminuendo leads quickly to
the Recapitulation in which B and the yearning
motive are heard together; the pizzicato string
passage returns to introduce A, then C as the
movement crescendos and races toward a conclusion in
which A is heard once more, gradually becoming
slower and softer to end, thoughtfully, on a D major
chord.
The second movement, Tempo Andante, ma
rubato, is based on two themes that Sibelius had
sketched in Italy, originally for a symphonic work
on Dante's Divine Comedy.
The first theme, A, according to Sibelius'
notes, was “Death singing for Don Juan.” The second
theme, B, was “Christus.”
As in the first movement, a sense of drama
and struggle played out by two protagonists can be
read into the movement which is loosely organized
around sonata form principles.
The constant use of crescendos and
diminuendos, sudden and gradual changes of tempo,
and changes of melodic motion from slow and stately
to madly rushing passages serves to propel the
movement forward while creating restlessness and
uncertainty. The movement begins with a timpani roll
introducing a long pizzicato sequence by double
basses and cellos.
The first theme, A, sounding chant-like and
somewhat ancient, is played by the bassoons in
measured phrases punctuated by the horns.
The section ends with an orchestral “rush” to
the “Tristan” motive (from Wagner's opera,
Tristan und Isolde) – a motive that encapsulates
and symbolizes intense, unfulfilled longing (both an
erotic and a death wish).
After a pause, in a “sunny” major key, the B
(Christus) theme appears in violins and cellos.
A feature of this theme, a falling drop of a
fifth, will return at the end, insistently,
surviving after musical evocations of anguish and
struggle, but not without a closing “scream”of
defiance.
“Wild,” is the best word to characterize the
opening of the third movement, Vivacissimo,
which is a Scherzo.
The first section sweeps along with
inexhaustible energy, then, as if spent, ends in a
series of long pauses, separated by a single,
repeated note from the timpani, each one softer than
the last. The Trio section begins in a much slower
tempo, with a plaintive, pastoral oboe melody.
The “wild”section returns, followed,
surprisingly and without a pause, by a return of the
Trio, which slowly gathers into a prolonged
crescendo until - reaching almost unendurable power
and unbearable suspense – cadences without a pause
on the first chord of the last movement -
- the Finale,
Allegro moderato.
A broad, sweeping theme, A,
soars upward.
Why does it sound so “right”?
Partly because its motives were sounding at
the end of the third movement but also because this
is the softly, understated theme that the strings
began back at the beginning of the first movement,
now swelled to heroic and victorious proportions.
A second theme, B, is announced by the oboe
and taken up by flutes and bassoon over “muttering”
violas and cellos.
Sibelius' wife revealed that this theme was
written in memory of her sister who had committed
suicide – and indeed, if it were played slower, it
would carry the connotation of a funeral march.
Both themes will return at a Recapitulation
(unfortunately for today's audience, when theme B is
transformed into heroic guise, it bears a
resemblance to “Pirates of the Caribbean.”)
Without losing momentum, the movement hurdles
toward a transfiguring and immensely satisfying
close.
© Barbara A.
Renton, Domus Musicae Slavicae, 2009