Eugene Onegin, Op. 24: Polonaise
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
b. Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia / May 7, 1840
d. St. Petersburg, Russia / November 6, 1893
First performed by the RPO on January 5, 1928; Eugene Goossens, conductor.
Eugene Onegin (1879) is Tchaikovsky’s most popular opera. Based on a story by Alexander Pushkin, it tells of thwarted romantic love set among members of the Russian upper class during the 1820s. This Polonaise, a stately dance of Polish origin, is heard during a ballroom scene in the third act.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Sergei Rachmaninoff
b. Oneg, Russia / March 20, 1873
d. Beverly Hills, Calif. / March 28, 1943
First performed by the RPO on February 16, 1928; Eugene Goossens, conductor; Henrietta Schumann, piano.
In 1897, the disastrous premiere of Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony threw his promising career as a composer into disarray. For three agonizing years, he found himself unable to create anything significant. He sought the help of Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a psychoanalyst.
As the composer recalled, “My relations had told Dr. Dahl that he must at all costs cure me of my apathetic condition and achieve such results that I would again begin to compose. Dahl asked what manner of composition they desired and had received the answer, ‘a concerto for pianoforte,’ for this I had promised to the people in London and had given it up in despair. Consequently I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day while I lay half asleep in my armchair in Dr. Dahl’s study, ‘You will begin to write your concerto....You will work with great facility....The concerto will be of excellent quality....’ It was always the same, without interruption. Although it may sound incredible, this cure really helped me…Out of gratitude I dedicated my Second Concerto to him.”
The reasons for its enormous popularity are clear. It displays its emotions directly, particularly warmth and melancholy. The themes are attractive and memorable; Rachmaninoff clothed them in lush orchestral colors; and the brilliant solo part mirrors the power and expressiveness of the composer’s own magnificent performing skills. He played it himself no fewer than 143 times, and recorded it twice.
Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
First performed by the RPO on December 12, 1923; Vladimir Shavitch, conductor.
Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony reflects the great personal turmoil he was undergoing during its creation. He began composing it in May 1877, as he entered into influential relationships with two women. The first was Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy patron of music. She gave him a monthly allowance, but on the condition that they would never meet.
The second was Antonina Milyukova, an emotionally unstable student in his composition class at the Moscow Conservatory. Her declarations of love left him deeply confused. His lack of experience in personal matters, his desperate desire to conceal his homosexuality, and Milyukova’s persistence led him to marry her. Their union lasted just a few months. Tchaikovsky became so distraught that he attempted suicide. He fled to France, Italy, and Austria, all the while working on his new symphony. He completed it in Venice during January 1878.
In a letter to his patroness, Tchaikovsky disclosed the ideas and emotions which he had borne in mind while composing his Fourth Symphony. These revelations reinforced points of philosophy which he had expressed earlier, but did so with an added level of intensity born of his recent, tragic experiences.
A harsh, imperious brass fanfare opens the symphony and recurs throughout it. “This is Fate,” Tchaikovsky wrote, “the power which hinders one in the pursuit of happiness from gaining the goal, which jealousy provides that peace and comfort do not prevail, that the sky is not free from clouds – a might that swings, like the sword of Damocles, constantly over the head, that poisons continually the soul. This might is overpowering and invincible. There is nothing to do but submit and vainly to complain.
“The second movement shows another phase of sadness. Here is that melancholy feeling that enwraps one when he sits alone at night in the house exhausted by work; a swarm of reminiscences arises. It is sad, yet sweet, to lose one’s self in the past.”
The atmosphere of gloom is then dispelled by a playful scherzo, where the strings play pizzicato from first bar to last. “Here are capricious arabesques, vague figures which slip into the imagination when one has taken wine and is slightly intoxicated,” according to Tchaikovsky.
A brilliant flourish for full orchestra gets the finale under way at top speed. Woodwinds introduce the main theme, a Russian folk song called In the Meadow There Stands a Birch Tree. This builds rapidly to the appearance of a confident, march like theme. After this sequence is repeated more elaborately, the atmosphere gradually loses its sense of well being. The “Fate” theme makes a catastrophic reappearance, bringing the festivities to a grinding halt.
But all is not lost, as Tchaikovsky confided to Madame von Meck. “If you find no pleasure in yourself, look about you. Go to the people. See how they can enjoy life and give themselves up entirely to festivity. There still is happiness, simple, naive happiness. Rejoice in the happiness of others – and you can still live.” The music regains its momentum, to end in a blaze of celebration.
© 2009 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.
