Rachmaninoff - Symphony No. 1

Sergei Rachmaninoff's 1st Symphony was not his first foray into symphonic form. He wrote a scherzo for orchestra when he was thirteen, and as a student wrote the first movement of a symphony. His official first symphony was composed between January and October of 1895 when he was 22 years old. Rachmaninoff was typically a composer that worked very rapidly, but the first symphony caused him much effort and work. He finally dedicated ten-hour workdays to see the work through to completion.

It did not have its premiere until nearly two years later. Rachmaninoff played the work in a version for piano for the composer and teacher Sergei Taneyev in 1896. Taneyev's negativity towards the work led Rachmaninoff to make changes in the symphony, and he was finally granted a performance of the work in March of 1897 in St. Petersburg with Alexander Glazunov conducting.

Rimsky-Korsakov attended the rehearsals of the symphony and was not overly impressed, and neither was the conductor Glazunov. Glazunov was not a very good conductor to begin with and his control of the orchestra was not strong. Rachmaninoff tried to make suggestions to the conductor but Glazunov ignored him.  Glazunov even had the nerve to make some cuts in the work and change some of the orchestration, with neither action benefiting the symphony. To add insult to injury, people who attended the performance thought that Glazunov, a heavy drinker, was drunk. Whether he was drunk or sober, Glazunov never much cared for or understood Rachmaninoff's music.  The effect on Rachmaninoff was devastating. He left the hall before the work ended. Critics were brutal, especially one of The Five composers César Cui who in part wrote:

 "If there were a conservatory in Hell, and if one of its talented students were to compose a program symphony based on the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell."

As for Rachmaninoff, his initial reaction was calm, but with the passage of time the negative reception of his symphony caused him to lose his self-confidence and he gave up composing until 1899. He did not destroy the work, but it was not performed again in his lifetime. Rachmaninoff put the score in his writing desk and it was left in Russia after Rachmaninoff fled the country in 1917.

In 1944 the instrumental parts and a two-piano reduction done by the composer were found in the archives of the Leningrad Conservatory Library. The manuscript score has never been found. Using the available parts and piano version, the symphony was reconstructed and given its second performance at the Moscow Conservatory in 1945.

The symphony is in 4 movements:
I. Grave - Allegro non troppo - The reasons for the poor reception to the symphony are many. Rachmaninoff was not a member of the 'ruling elite' of Russian music at the time. The Five (at least the three that were still alive; Mussorgsky and Borodin were dead) had become the gatekeepers of what constituted 'Russian' music. Rimsky-Korsakov had grown conservative, Cui was more of a critic than composer and Balakirev was increasingly irrational, with honorary member Glazunov being borderline reactionary. What was once a group of progressive and forward-looking composers could not support the changes Rachmaninoff brought to the symphony.

The first movement begins with a slow and powerful introduction. It is only seven bars long, but sets the stage for the entire symphony. The simple motif:

Makes an appearance in each movement of the symphony and acts to unify the entire work, as does the main theme of the movement. The main theme of the first movement is taken from the medieval Dies Irae plainchant, a kind of idee fixe that appears in different guises in many of Rachmaninoff's works. The second theme first appears in the strings, a gentle melody in contrast to the first theme in texture and volume.  This theme climaxes and then is brushed aside by a fugal treatment of the first theme. The theme is thoroughly worked out and developed before the recapitulation. The two themes are presented again along with the outburst heard after the exposition, which is followed by a coda. The movement ends suddenly with a figure derived from the first theme.

II. Allegro animato - A scherzo in everything but name, the movement begins with snatches of notes from the introduction and the main theme of the first movement. The main theme of the movement (Dies Irae in another disguise) is interrupted by call-like motives. The middle section has a new tune made from bits and pieces of what has gone on before. Thematic material floats in and out and the movement comes to a quiet close.

III. Larghetto - A lyrical tune punctuated by the opening motive of the introduction. There is a middle section that is darker in mood, but the tune reappears and is repeated until it becomes very quiet. The music gently evaporates with the sounds of clarinets and plucked strings.

IV. Allegro con fuoco - The finale begins with martial music in a variant of the Dies Irae theme. The music grows in lushness before it resumes its march-like quality. The music remains tuneful with brass added for emphasis. Rachmaninoff keeps everything moving with energy as snippets of motifs somewhat familiar make their appearance. The tension builds, syncopations are heard. The bass drum and percussion add texture to the music that grows until a tam tam signals the beginning of the end. The opening motif insistently reappears and guides the brass and orchestra to the final chords

Gottschalk - Souvenir de Porto Rico 'Marche de Gibaros'

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born in New Orleans in 1829 and began playing the piano very early.  By 1840 he had given his first public performance as a child prodigy. At the age of thirteen he left with his father for Europe to get classical training, but he was denied entry into the Paris Conservatory because he was an American.

Despite the prejudice against Americans, Gottshalk managed to make his way into the European musical establishment through family connections and was exposed to classical technique in piano playing and composition and he learned from the examples.  His piano playing and  compositions were a sensation in Europe, and after his return to America in 1853, he began touring extensively. He toured all over The United States, Cuba, Central America and South America.

Gottshalk toured Puerto Rico in 1857, and while there took a short vacation and stayed at a sugar plantation owned by an English fan of his music. He was so taken with the scenery and local music he extended his to relax and compose. One of the pieces he wrote while there was Souvenir de Porto Rico for piano solo.  It is a march built upon two Puerto Rican folk songs. The piece is actually a set of double variations as the themes follow each other in succession and are varied upon each repetition. The subtitle  Marche de Gibaros comes from Gottshalk watching the peasant farmers, the Gibaros, work the fields. Gottshalk loved the sights and sounds of the Caribbean so much he stayed almost five years, absorbing and composing.

Gottshalk wrote about his inspiration for the piece:

"[I was] perched upon the edge of a crater, [and] my cabin overlooked the whole country. Every evening I moved my piano out upon the terrace, and played for myself alone, everything that the scene opened up before me inspired. It was there that I composed 'Marche des Gibaros.' "

Gottshalk's mother was creole, his grandmother and his nurse were both born in Haiti, so he was exposed to many different musical traditions from the beginning. He continued to absorb different musical traditions and styles for all of his short life.  Souvenir de Porto Rico is a fine example of the way Gottshalk combined Caribbean and African rhythms and folk song with classical form and virtuosity. He was using rhythms that became associated with Ragtime and Jazz long before they became popular.  All of this makes for very good music to listen to, and music that takes a virtuoso technique to do full justice.

Gottshalk was involved in a scandal with a student in Oakland, California in 1865 and left the U.S. never to return. He ended up in South America and died, age 40, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1869 from complications of malaria.

Mussorgsky - Songs And Dances Of Death

Of the Russian composers that made up The Five in the 19th century, Modest Mussorgsky may have had the most natural talent of them all.  He began piano lessons with his mother at the age of six and made such rapid progress that by ten was performing for family and friends. His first composition was published when he was twelve years old.

Although his musical talent was obvious, Mussorgsky entered the Cadet School Of The Guards when he was thirteen to continue the family tradition of military service.  He continued his study of music while at the school and his natural abilities as a pianist were in large demand. When Mussorgsky was seventeen he met Borodin and struck up a friendship, and he soon met Balakirev and began to study with him. Soon after that, Mussorgsky resigned his military commission.

He learned much from Balakirev, but after a time Mussorgsky set out on his own. His family was well-off financially and Mussorgsky had no money worries until the Emancipation Of The Serfs in 1861 which caused Mussorgsky's family sufficient economic hardship that he could no longer rely on  them for support. He took a minor civil service job to help make ends meet. Due to chronic alcoholism, he composed erratically and failed to finish many compositions. His life continued its downward spiral, although he did manage to finish his masterpiece Boris Godunov and some other compositions. He lost his civil service job in 1880 and was reduced to living on the charity of friends until he died in 1881 of alcoholism at the age of 42.

Mussorgsky wrote the song cycle Songs And Dances Of  Death in 1875-1877 to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov who was distantly related to Mussorgsky. That Mussorgsky was quite taken with the poet and his works is expressed in a letter:

After Pushkin and Lermontov I have not encountered what I have in Kutuzov... Sincerity leaps from almost everything in Kutuzov, almost everywhere you scent the freshness of a fine warm morning, together with a matchless inborn technique... And how he is drawn to the people, history!

Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov

Obviously Mussorgsky was commenting on the power of Kutuzov's poetry to evoke images and feelings, in this particular case the images and feelings concerning death.

The four songs all deal with the figure of death and how death claims its victims in ways all too familiar to people in 19th century Russia. There are versions of the songs for voice and orchestra by Glazunov/ Rimsky-Korsakov and others, the latest being by Dmitri Shostakovich. But  the songs were originally written for piano and voice, with the piano doing much more than simply accompanying the singer. Singer and piano combine in some of the most powerful songs ever written. As I do not understand Russian,  I can only approximate the full effect of these songs in the original language.  But I am enough of a musician to understand some of the musical power and drama Mussorgsky put into these songs. Music itself is a language, and Mussorgsky expresses much in these songs written for the two instruments he understood very well; the piano and human voice.  I want to thank Sergy Rybin for extending his kind permission to include his translation of the Russian texts.

Lullaby -  Mussorgsky paints a picture of death claiming a sick child. The poet sets the scene, death enters and a short dialog between the child's mother and death begins. I have bracketed indications of which entity is speaking for clarification - 

[Poet] - A child is groaning...  A candle, burning out,

Dimly flickers onto surroundings.

The whole night, rocking the cradle,

A mother has not dozed away with sleep.

Early-early in the morning, carefully, on the door

Compassionate Death -- Knock!

The mother shuddered, looked back with worry...

[Death] - "Don't get frightened, my dear!

Pale morning already looks in the window...

With crying, anguishing and loving

You have tired yourself, have a little nap,

I'll sit instead of you.

You've failed to pacify the child.

I'll sing sweeter than you" --

[Mother]  - "Quiet! My child rushes and struggles,

Tormenting my soul!"

[Death]  - "Well, with me he'll soon be appeased.

Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby." --

[Mother]  - "The cheeks are fading, the breath in weakening...

Be quiet, I beg you!" --

[Death]  - "That's a good sign, the suffering will quieten,

Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby." --

[Mother]  - "Be gone, you damned thing!

With your tenderness you'll kill my joy!" --

[Death]  - "No, a peaceful sleep I'll conjure up for the baby.

Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby." --

[Mother]  - "Have pity, wait at least for a moment

with finishing your awful song!" --

[Death]  - "Look, he fell asleep with my quiet singing.

Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby."
translation © Sergy Rybin http://www.lieder.net/

Serenade -  

Magical languor, blue night,

Trembling darkness of spring.

The sick girl takes in, with her head dropped,

The whisper of the night's silence.

Sleep does not close her shining eyes,

Life beckons towards pleasures,

Meanwhile under the window in the midnight silence

Death sings a serenade:

"In the gloom of captivity, severe and stifling,

Your youth is fading away;

A mysterious knight, with magic powers

I'll free you up.

Stand up, look at yourself: with beauty

Your translucent face is shining,

Your cheeks are rosy, with a wavy plait

Your figure is entwined, like with a cloud.

The blue radiance of your piercing eyes

Is brighter than skies and fire.  

Your breath flutters with the midday heat ...

You have seduced me.

Your hearing is captured with my serenade,

Your voice called for a knight,

The knight has come for the ultimate reward;

The hour of ecstasy has arrived. 

Your body is tender, your trembling is ravishing...

Oh, I'll suffocate you

in my strong embraces: listen to my seductive

chatter! ... be silent!... You are mine!"

translation © Sergy Rybin http://www.lieder.net/

Trepak -  

Forest and glades, no one is around.

A snow-storm is crying and groaning,

It feels as in the gloom of the night

The Evil One is burying someone;

Hush, it is so! In the darkness

Death is hugging and caressing an old man,

With the drunkard She is dancing a trepak,

While singing a song into his ear:

"Oh, my little wretched man,

Got drunk, stumbled along the road,

But the witch-blizzard has risen furiously,

And driven you from the glade into the dense forest.

Tortured with anguish and need,

Lie down, curl up and fall asleep, my dear!

I'll warm you up with snow, my darling,

And stir up a great game around you.

Shake up the bed, you blizzard-swan!

Hey, get going, start chanting, you weather

A fairytale, that could last all night,

So that the drunkard could fall asleep soundly!

Hey you, forests, skies and clouds,

Gloom, wind and fleeting snow,

Wreathe into a shroud, snowy and fluffy;

With it I'll cover our old man, like a baby...

Sleep, my little friend, happy wretch,

The summer has come and blossomed!

Above the fields the sun is laughing and sickles roam,

The song hovers around; the doves are flying about..."

translation © Sergy Rybin http://www.lieder.net/

The Field Marshal - 

The battle is thundering, the armor is shining,

Copper cannons are roaring,

The troops are running, the horses are rushing

And red rivers are flowing.

The midday is blazing -- people are fighting,

The sun is declining -- the fight is stronger,

The sunset is fading away -- but the enemies

Are still battling more fierce and hateful.

And night has fallen on the battlefield.

The armies have parted in the darkness...

Everything has fallen quiet, and in the night's mist

The groans have risen to the heavens.

Then, illuminated by moonlight,

On her battle horse,

Shining with the whiteness of her bones,

Appeared Death; and in the silence,

Taking in moans and prayers,

Full of proud satisfaction,

Like a field marshal she circled around

The place of battle,

And having ridden to the top on the hill,

looked around, stopped, smiled....

And above the battlefield

Roared her fateful voice:

"The battle is finished! I won over everyone!

You all submitted before me, soldiers! 

Life has made you quarrel, I have reconciled you!

Stand up as one for the parade, corpses!

Pass in front of me in a pompous march,

I want to count my troops;

Then deposit your bones into the earth,

It is sweet to rest from life in the ground!

Year after year will pass,

And even the memory of you will disappear.

I will not forget and loudly above you

Will hold a feast at the midnight hour!

With a heavy dance I'll trample

The raw earth, so that the realm of the grave

Your bones will never be able to leave,

So that you'll never rise from the ground! "

translation © Sergy Rybin http://www.lieder.net/

Liadov - Baba Yaga

In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being that takes the form of an old woman that lives deep in the forest. She lives in a hut that stands on the huge legs of a chicken. She flits about the wilderness while sitting in a mortar and moving herself with a pestle. She's not strictly an evil entity as she can give assistance as well as evil to those who seek her out.  The folklore for the figure varies according to the area. The Russian Baba Yaga folklore has inspired Russian artists as well as musicians. Two Russian composers that wrote works based on the legend were Mussorgsky, who wrote one of the pieces in his Pictures From An Exhibition called The Hut On Fowl Legs,  and the piece discussed here by Anatoly Liadov. 

Liadov came from a family of musicians, and entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1870 to study violin and piano. He was a very good pianist, but his lack of drive began early as he was expelled from Rimsky-Korsakov's class for extensive absenteeism. He managed to get back into good graces to complete his studies and began teaching at the conservatory in 1878 and taught many young composers including Modest Mussorgsky and Sergei Prokofiev. 

Liadov was well regarded as a composer in his lifetime. Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky all thought much of his technical abilities, but Liadov's output as a composer was relatively small thanks to lack of ambition and perhaps a lack of self confidence. He finished no composition of any major length, but was a master of the miniature, whether he was writing for piano or orchestra. He married into money in 1884, which meant that between that and his teaching position he was hardly in need of money, no doubt another stumbling block to his composing career. 

Baba Yaga was written between the years 1891 - 1904 and the piece shows Liadov's flair for orchestral color.  In a piece that lasts under four minutes, Liadov manages to paint a picture of Russian forests and folklore, a tone poem in miniature.

Ruggles - Sun Treader

Carl Ruggles was foul-mouthed, highly opinionated, crude, and merciless in his criticism of other composers except Charles Ives who was his friend. He was a man that spouted disrespect for Brahms, calling him a "sissy". But the worst criticism and harshest judgments were aimed at only one composer - himself. Self-critical in the extreme, he wrote and rewrote his music, only to destroy most of it. He lived to be 95 years old but left only eight published compositions, with the longest one taking about 16 minutes to play, the piece for orchestra he called Sun Treader.

Ruggles took violin lessons in early childhood, and started calling himself Carl instead of his given name Charles out of his respect for German composers, especially Wagner. He was classically trained in composition and conducting at Harvard, but maintained a hand to mouth existence most of his life by teaching, conducting, being a music reviewing, engraving, and as a painter had one-man shows of his work.

Ruggles' music sounds something like Schoenberg's as it is dissonant and atonal, but Ruggles did not practice Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. Ruggles wrote dissonant free melody and what came to be called dissonant counterpoint.  With dissonance the norm, Ruggles added to the complexity by using an ever-shifting metrical pulse of complex time signatures.

His method of composing was pain-staking, tedious and he took years to compose a single work. He would sit at the piano and play a single chord over and over again, giving it the 'test of time' as he said.  His most well-known work is Sun Treader.  He began it in 1926 and it was intended for a concert in New York City, but the work was not completed until six years later. It was premiered in Paris in 1931 and was not played in The United States until 1966.

The name of the piece comes from a poem by Robert Browning titled Pauline, specifically a line from the poem, "Sun-treader—life and light be thine for ever" a line that is in praise of Shelley the poet. Such things that inspire composers are usually not meant to be taken literally. Ruggles' work has nothing to do with Shelley the poet, but it is a result of the feelings Ruggles got from the poem, a combination of grandeur, futility, anger, and who knows what else. So Sun Treader is in essence a symphonic poem in the tradition began by Liszt.

Sun Treader begins with notes hammered out by the timpani as the orchestra makes initial loud, dissonant statements that sound like chaos. The music quiets somewhat in volume and the dissonance is not as harsh but it is still there. The music ebbs and flows with sections of relative calm and sections of unsettling grittiness. The hammer blows of the timpani return throughout the piece as a sort of guidepost to help us through the music, and as a signal that the climatic end of the piece is near.

In the liner notes of Ruggles Complete Works written by Ruggles' good friend John Kirkpatrick he hears the work as a series of arcs of dissonant melody that  fall into a pattern of traditional sonata form - exposition, development, recapitulation, coda.  For anyone who wishes to explore Ruggles' music further, I recommend the reissue of the recording by the Buffalo Philharmonic and Michael Tilson-Thomas and the excellent liner notes that accompany it written by John Kirkpatrick.

Smetana - String Quartet No. 1, 'From My Life'

Bedřich Smetana was one of the first musicians to create a nationalistic style of  Czech music. His music was  closely associated with the struggle of his country for independence, and Smetana himself participated in the Prague Uprising in 1848 which was also the time of his first nationalistic compositions.

Smetana was a child prodigy on the piano and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his brief stint as a revolutionary in 1848 he founded the Piano Institute in Prague in 1849. He contacted Liszt for advice and assistance, and the two became friends. The Institute gave regular recitals which Smetana participated in along with the students, and Liszt attended some of these recitals. By 1856 Smetana had suffered the death of three children and his wife contracted tuberculosis. His compositions were not being received very well, and the hoped-for relaxing of the political climate didn't happen, so he moved to Sweden where he taught and composed.

He eventually was coaxed by admirers to come back and he returned to Prague in 1860 and continued to compose, concentrating on helping to establish Czech nationalistic operas. He was appointed conductor of the Provisional Theater in Prague after he wrote his first two operas, one of which was his very popular opera The Bartered Bride.

Smetana was involved in controversies during his tenure as conductor, as the more conservative factions in Prague distrusted Smetana's siding with the progressive music and ideas of Wagner and Liszt. Liszt became his friend and gave Smetana advice that led to the founding of the Piano Institute in Prague. The Institute gave regular recitals which Smetana participated in along with the students, and Liszt attended some of these recitals.

After the intrigues of the opera house and the continuing politics of his enemies he was on the verge of being fired as conductor of the Provisional Theater, but due to the efforts of his backers such as Antonín Dvořák, he was reappointed as Artistic Director of the theater in 1873.  The bitter controversies were contributing factors to the illness that beset him in 1874. He became totally deaf in his right ear and advised theater management that if his health did not improve he would resign. By October he was totally deaf in both ears and resigned. Smetana concentrated on composing and in 1876 wrote his first string quartet, subtitled 'From My Life'.  As Smetana explained to a friend:

"I wanted to depict in music the course of my life…written for four instruments which, as in a small circle of friends, talk among themselves about what has oppressed me so significantly." 

The 1st String Quartet is in 4 movements with comments in italics by the composer:
I. Allegro vivo appassionato -  
"1st part - The call of fate into the life struggle. Love of art in my youth, my inclination towards romanticism in love as well as music, an inexpressible yearning for something, and a warning concerning my future misfortune.  The long insistent note in the finale owes its origin to this. It is the fateful ringing in my ears of the high-pitched tones which in 1874 announced the beginning of my deafness. I permitted myself this little joke, because it was so disastrous to me."

The first movement begins with an E minor chord, after which the violins play a steady, subdued eighth-note figure as the cello plays an extended E in the low bass. This is all in preparation for the entrance of the viola with Smetana's 'fate' motive.

The motive appears throughout the first movement and is supplemented with other themes that express Smetana's emotions towards his youth.

II. Allegro moderato à la Polka -  
"The second movement, a quasi- polka, brings to mind the joyful days of youth when I composed dance tunes and was known everywhere as a passionate lover of dancing."

III. Largo sostenuto - 
"The happiness of my first love, the girl who later became my wife.  The struggle with the unfavorable fate, the final reaching of my goal."

IV. Vivace -
"The fourth movement describes the discovery that I could treat national elements in music and my joy in following this path until it was checked by the catastrophe of the onset of my deafness, the outlook into the sad future, the tiny rays of hope of recovery, but remembering all the promise of my early career, a feeling of painful regret.”

After Smetana's joyous music of the first part of the finale, there is a sudden interruption as the tinnitus that began Smetana's descent into deafness is depicted by a high harmonic E played by the first violin while the other instruments play tense tremolos. The music becomes melancholy as the fate motive heard in the first movement comes back. The music itself slowly goes silent as the movement ends with silence, a poignant representation of Smetana's deafness.

Smetana composed for a few more years until his mind experienced a descent of its own into madness. His family nursed him as long as possible, but he  was confined to a lunatic asylum after he became violent and incoherent and died there a few months later in 1884.  There is still controversy about the cause of death, but the evidence points strongly to end - stage syphilis .

Schubert - Piano Trio No. 1 In B-flat Major

Schubert wrote two piano trios in the last year of his life, neither of which were published or heard in public until after his death. It was the first compositions in the form since his last piano trio written when he was fifteen. Any of Schubert's music played during his lifetime was usually played at a 'Schubertaide', an informal impromptu party held in the home of a wealthy friend and admirer. The first trio was heard in a private house at the engagement party of one of his friends.

By the last year of his life, Schubert's daily routine usually consisted of composing in the morning, visiting and taking long walks in the afternoon, with evenings spent with his friends, sometimes at a Schubertaide, sometimes drinking wine and singing. Schubert was as a man possessed while he was composing. His moods could run from dark and depressing to wild and fun-loving. These wide fluctuations in mood are sometimes reflected in his music, especially in the last years of his short life when he suffered with the end stages of syphilis. The 1st piano Trio is somewhat of an exception, as the music is good-natured and cheerful, at least for the most part.

Schubert's 1st Piano Trio is in 4 movements:
I. Allegro moderato - The first movement consists of two themes, each of which unwind in the lengthy exposition, and are expounded upon in the also lengthy development section that is punctuated by changes in key and mood. This is the music of Schubert's last years that seemed to many to be overly long, but music the Robert Schumann labeled as 'of heavenly length'.  The themes have a final appearance in a coda.

II. Andante un poco mosso - The cello is center-stage at the start, with the violin and piano taking up the pleasant tune. The three instruments take turns repeating and commenting on the melody with Schubert keeping everything in balance in music of seamless beauty.

III.  Scherzo - Allegro -  The piano starts things off, with the violin and cello joining in a jaunty Ländler. The trio shifts gears and becomes a simple Waltz, after which the first dance repeats.

IV. Rondo- Allegro vivace -  A rondo that also has elements of the theme and variation form .