Program Notes – Rachmaninoff & Tchaikovsky, September 23, 2023

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM BY JOHN P. VARINEAU
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30.........................Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Written: 1909 | Movements: Three | Style: Romantic | Duration: 39 minutes

In 1909, Sergei Rachmaninoff was world-weary and exhausted. Resting at his family estate at Ivanovka, he wrote to a friend:

[I’ve done] nothing more than treatments, walking, and sleeping. You see, my friend, after 36 years I realize that my health, or rather, my strength, has clearly begun to decline. . . . At the most I have about 2–3 hours a day when I feel strong. . . . Recently I began practicing an hour a day. After this hour in the afternoon I get so tired that I go to sleep at once on the couch . . . .”
The thought of his next tour—a trip to America—also tormented him:
Only 10 days ago I sent America my new terms, in which I agree to come for 25 concerts, but . . . now I’m afraid that they might agree. Though the earnings could be big, which would ‘console’ me to a certain extent, it will be very hard to endure this penal servitude. . . . But then, perhaps, after America I’ll be able to buy myself that automobile. So it may not be so bad!

After arriving in America, he immediately set upon a grueling schedule of performances.

His first orchestral appearances were with the orchestras of Baltimore, New York, Hartford, Boston and Toronto, performing his Second Piano Concerto. Then he made his American conducting debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, leading his Second Symphony. Barely three weeks after landing in America he premiered the work that he had finished writing the previous summer (and practiced on the trip over to the United States), his Third Piano Concerto. Six weeks later, he played it again, this time with the New York Philharmonic conducted by none other than Gustav Mahler.

This concerto has an unusual beginning. Instead of a long orchestral introduction and then all sorts of impressive piano technical feats, it begins with a gentle orchestral accompaniment to a Russian hymn-like melody played by the piano. When the orchestra finally gets the tune, that’s when the piano fireworks begin. There is a second, romance-filled theme for the piano. The development section begins with the same melody that starts the concerto, but it soon turns into something much different. It is full of action, energy, and technical bravura. Eventually it gives way to a massive cadenza. Shortly after an impassioned climax, it dissolves into an accompanying figure, allowing the woodwinds to enter for a short nod to the main theme. Then it’s back to the cadenza for a gentle transition into the real restatement of the opening of the movement. The movement has a surprisingly sudden finish.

The orchestra begins the second movement in a dark and mournful mood. The piano enters in anguish, and in grand gestures develops the main theme of the movement. There is a sly transition to a waltz-like rhythm with the clarinet playing a beautiful theme (based on the main theme of the first movement) over a rapid figuration by the pianist. The waltz dissolves back into the bleak mood of the opening of the movement. As the orchestra plays the main theme, the piano breaks in and introduces the final chase – the last movement. It is a study in contrasts. While it pushes the piano to its technical limits, there are long moments of impassioned lyricism as well. There are light scherzo-like passages, and slow hymn-like ones. Of course, there is the hair-raising finish.

 

Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36…………………………..Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)

Written: 1877-78 | Movements: Four | Style: Romantic | Duration: 44 minutes

When you listen to a symphony by Mozart or Haydn, you are probably not hearing about their lives. Mozart wrote some of his most joyful music when his life was falling apart. But it is a different story for many composers from the nineteenth century. They were like autobiographers, purposely exposing their inner self through music. Nineteenth century audiences, like those of today, really enjoyed taking the roller coaster ride of emotions that the composer revealed.

Tchaikovsky once wrote that his whole life was spent “regretting the past and hoping for the future, never being satisfied with the present.” He wrote his Fourth Symphony at a particularly bad time in his life. He had just entered into a disastrous marriage to a young girl. Within six weeks the couple was permanently separated. Tchaikovsky’s patron, Madame von Meck, tried to convince the wife to grant a divorce by offering a large stipend, but to no avail. Madame von Meck was a wealthy widow who was infatuated with Tchaikovsky. The two never formally met, studiously avoided each other, and carried on a long, ‘Platonic’ relationship via mail. In Tchaikovsky’s letters to von Meck, we get a glimpse of Tchaikovsky’s tumultuous life and the meaning of his Fourth Symphony:

Our symphony has a program that I can express in words to you alone. The introduction is the germ of the entire symphony, its central idea. This is Fate, the force that prevents our hopes of happiness from being realized, that jealously watches to see that peace and happiness not be complete or unclouded. [Successive new themes express] growing discontent and despair. A sweet vision appears but bitter Fate awakens us. Life is a continuous, shifting, grim reality.

The second movement (Andantino in modo di canzona) expresses another aspect of longing. One regrets the past but is too wary to start a new life. The third movement (a scherzo) expresses no definite feelings but is a series of capricious arabesques. The mind is empty, the imagination free to draw curious designs, disconnected images like those that pass through the mind before falling asleep, beyond reality, incoherent.

The Fourth movement (Allegro con fuoco): If you find no joy in yourself, seek it in others. See how the people find their pleasures. Here is a pleasant holiday festival. (A Russian folk song is heard.) No sooner do you forget yourself, than merciless Fate reappears. The others pay no attention. There are simple, profound joys in the world.  Take them and life will be bearable after all.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is another work that deals with “Fate.” In a letter written to a fellow composer, Tchaikovsky opened another window to the meaning of his Fourth Symphony:

Nowhere in the work have I made the least effort to express a new thought. In reality, my work is a reflection of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. I have not of course copied Beethoven’s musical content, only borrowed the central idea. What kind of program does this Fifth Symphony have, do you think? Not only does it have a program, it is so clear that there cannot be the smallest difference of opinion as to its meaning. Much the same lies at the root of my symphony, and if you have failed to grasp that, it merely proves that I am no Beethoven—a point on which I have no doubt anyway.

©2023 John P. Varineau