Program Notes

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943)

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Opus 18 (1901)

Sergei Rachmaninov was what show business types call a Triple Threat: composer, pianist, and conductor all in one – and utterly first-rate in all three. But Triple just might have been Duple. His protean gifts notwithstanding, Rachmaninov suffered mightily from lapses in self-confidence, particularly where composition was concerned. He might have jettisoned his compositional ambitions altogether after the 1897 premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13. It was a debacle, as a shamefully incompetent performance under a reportedly drunken Alexander Glazunov had been followed by a communal lashing from Moscow critics. “If there were a Conservatory in Hell, and one of its students were to compose a symphony…” began one particularly venomous review.

Three years of compositional paralysis followed. Posterity owes a heartfelt shout-out to physician Nikolai Dahl, who treated Rachmaninov with daily hypnotherapy for three months and got him back on his compositional feet. Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18, completed in 1900, was the happy result. For once, life imitated a grade-B movie as Rachmaninov arose from his depression with a massive hit that has remained deeply popular from the get-go, even in the face of several Hollywood co-opts that might have flattened a lesser composition. As the last word in panting romantic ardor it was the perfect satirical accompaniment to Tom Ewell’s infatuation with Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch; it survived that usage unscathed. In 1976 its slow movement was massaged into the three-handkerchief pop-ballad weepie “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen; that one was a bit harder for it to live down. And then there’s “Full Moon and Empty Arms” …

Which leads many listeners to expect a familiar showpiece. That can result in a subconscious discounting of the concerto as overheated and overplayed. But that is letting familiarity get in the way of clear listening. If all Rach 2 had going for it was a hit parade of lovely melodies, it would certainly by now have gone the way of scintillating tune-fests by the likes of Henri Herz and Friedrich Kalkbrenner. That it remains with us today – if anything stronger than ever – is a testament to its quality. Beautifully constructed, superbly orchestrated, and surprisingly taut, Rachmaninov’s youthful “comeback” concerto sets its innate lusciousness within a framework of rock-solid structural integrity.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)

Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64 (1888)

On May 19, 1888 Tchaikovsky wrote his brother Modest that “now, little by little, with difficulty, I am beginning to squeeze the symphony from my benumbed brain.” He squeezed throughout the summer, and on August 14 sent this succinct message to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck: “Symphony finished.” On November 5 Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, garnering mixed reviews that ranged from an anonymous critic’s respectful notice (“The first two movements make the greatest impression … their themes are very beautiful and developed with complete mastery”) to a gleefully malicious mauling by the ever-waspish César Cui (“The finale distinguishes itself with its vulgarity and blather.”) Tchaikovsky himself harbored some doubts, but by early 1888 he could express his relief that “I no longer find the symphony horrible and have started liking it again.”

It has long been an article of faith that the Tchaikovsky Fifth is a programmatic symphony, although the only actual documentary evidence to that effect is a scribbled passage in an 1887–88 Tchaikovsky notebook, discovered and translated in 1937 by Nicholas Slonimsky:

Complete resignation before Fate, or, which is the same, before the inscrutable predestination of Providence. Allegro (I) Murmurs, doubts, plaints, reproaches against XXX. Shall I throw myself in the embraces of Faith??? … a wonderful programme, if I could only carry it out.

Nobody has a clue as to what Tchaikovsky actually meant by ‘XXX’, so naturally a steeplechase of supposition has ensued. The odds-on favorite for the win is that the Xs are a coded reference to Tchaikovsky’s sexual orientation, with his gambling addiction trailing by a nose. One guess being as good as another, ‘XXX’ can be interpreted to mean just about anything – or nothing at all.

In fact, the Fifth as program symphony has been largely debunked. That lessens neither its dramatic impact nor the persuasiveness of the narrative thread that runs through its four movements. A vital component in that thread is the ‘motto’ theme that appears at the very opening and recurs throughout in various guises. First heard in paired clarinets, the initially moody motto theme gives way to the first movement proper, a considerably brighter affair that bears compelling witness to Tchaikovsky’s inherent Classicism, exhibiting as it does the rock-solid structural integrity more associated with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven than with the late Romantics.

The second-place Andante cantabile contains one of Tchaikovsky’s most beloved melodies, a horn solo that has maintained its inherent dignity even in the face of endless popularizations. For some, this movement not only represents the work’s heart center, but is also Tchaikovsky’s finest slow symphonic movement. It is followed by a distinctly melancholic waltz that uses as its primary theme a tune that Tchaikovsky picked up on a visit to Florence. Then comes the finale, in which the motto theme kicks off a majestic processional that eventually gives way to a fiery Allegro. Towards the end, the motto theme returns yet again – but now in vivid major mode, thereby concluding the symphony in a resplendent glow of triumph.