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NOTES ON THE PROGRAM By James M. Keller, Program Annotator The Leni and Peter May Chair
The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic Poem after Arnold Böcklin, Op. 29 Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 Sergei Rachmaninoff
S
ergei Rachmaninoff was not a standout during his first years at the Moscow Conservatory, but by the time he graduated, in 1892, he was awarded the “Great Gold Medal,” an honor that had been bestowed previously on only two students: Sergei Taneyev and the nowforgotten Arseny Koreshchenko. He quickly emerged on the international scene as a musical triple-threat: a supreme pianist, a conductor of considerable distinction, and a composer who managed to be original while hewing to essentially traditional values and techniques. Rachmaninoff’s career was going swimmingly when, in January 1905, his native Russia was rocked with political unrest. A group of workers bearing petitions to the czar approached the
Winter Palace, only to be gunned down by the Royal Police — a salvo later deemed a dress rehearsal for the Russian Revolution of 1917. Rachmaninoff left almost immediately, first heading to Italy, then to Dresden, where he kept a home for the next three years. He chose Dresden on musical grounds: passing through on an earlier visit he had been impressed by “the mighty inspiration” of a production of Die Meistersinger at the opera house there, which he took as a sign that Dresden must be the most musically appreciative of all German cities. It didn’t hurt that Dresden was so near to Leipzig, home of the acclaimed Gewandhaus Orchestra and its music director, Arthur Nikisch, whom Rachmaninoff respected profoundly.
The Isle of the Dead Sergei Rachmaninoff Born: April 1, 1873, in either Oneg or Semyonovo, Russia Died: March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California Work composed: January–April 30, 1909, with cuts and minor polishing for another two decades; dedicated to the composer’s friend Nicolas von Struve World premiere: May 1, 1909, in Moscow, the composer conducting, at a Philharmonic Society Concert New York Philharmonic premiere: January 16, 1919, Josef Stransky, conductor Most recent New York Philharmonic performance: June 11, 2011, David Robertson, conductor Estimated duration: ca. 21 minutes NOVEMBER 2015 | 25
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Listen for … the Dies Irae The chant “Dies Irae,” a sequence dating to about the year 1250, was already widely associated with funeral rites before it was officially incorporated into the Requiem Mass in the 16th century. Nineteenthcentury composers — most prominently Berlioz, Liszt, and Saint-Saëns — quoted it for its morbid connotation, and Rachmaninoff joined their ranks beginning with The Isle of the Dead. The melody would later surface in his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (listen for it in the seventh variation), Symphony No. 3 (1937), and Symphonic Dances (1941). It is much alluded to in The Isle of the Dead, but only at the end is it heard in more or less extended form, played lugubriously by bass clarinet, bassoons, and cellos. Apart from the obvious depictive relevance, some commentators have read a more personal meaning into Rachmaninoff’s quotation of the Dies Irae. He seems to have been periodically obsessed with death, and though he was only 36 years old when he composed this tone poem, he was feeling very old, often overtaken by depression, having trouble with eyesight, given to headaches, sleeping poorly, complaining of aches and pains. Others, however, have viewed the composer’s Dies Irae quotations in a more positive light, considering them a sort of memento mori, like the skull next to St. Jerome’s desk — not so much intended to inspire morbid thoughts as to remind the composer to keep busy while he could.
One of his new Dresden friends, Nicolas von Struve, suggested the idea of composing a piece inspired by the painting Toteninsel (The Isle of the Dead), by the Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901). The artwork features a ghostly figure in a boat, shepherding a coffin to a rocky outcropping, an island that seems partly transformed into a grand mausoleum. Böcklin painted five versions of this work (one of which resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art) and they became popular through blackand-white reproductions. That is how Rachmaninoff first became acquainted with the image, while in Paris in 1907. He told an interviewer for the Musical Observer that the image affected him more deeply than the original oils he later saw in Leipzig and Berlin: I was not much moved by the color of the painting. If I had seen the original first, I might not have composed my Isle of the Dead. I like the picture best in black and white. His friend von Struve’s suggestion proved perfectly suited to Rachmaninoff’s mode of working. Asked about his extramusical inspiration for The Isle of the Dead, the composer told the magazine The Etude: “There must be something definite before my mind to convey a
Sources and Inspirations Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead was inspired by a painting of the same title by the Swiss-German artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901), one of the most influential artists of the late 19th-century cultural movement known as Symbolism. Symbolist artists infused their works with imaginative interpretations of mythology, dream imagery, and mysticism, often resulting in eerie visualizations of well-known themes. Böcklin described his own Isle of the Dead as “a dream picture: it must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door.” He painted five versions of the work from 1880 to 1886, subtly varying details, such as the figures in the boat and the openings in the isle’s rocky cliffs, presumed to be burial chambers. The work sparked the public imagination to a degree that reproductions were popular throughout Europe, so it is no surprise that Rachmaninoff would have seen a black-andwhite replica before seeing it in full color. — The Editors This variation of Böcklin’s work, from 1880, can be seen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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definite impression, or the ideas refuse to appear.” On another occasion, he said:
began — how can I say? It came up within me, was entertained, written down.
When composing, I find it of great help to have in mind a book just recently read, or a beautiful picture, or a poem. Sometimes a definite story is kept in mind, which I try to convert into tones without disclosing the source of my inspiration.
As a youngster, Rachmaninoff had enrolled on scholarship at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but he proved so indifferent a student that the school threatened to curtail its support. At that point his uncle, the pianist Aleksandr Ziloti, stepped in to provide a measure of discipline that Rachmaninoff’s parents and professors had not managed to instill. He swept his promising but unfocused nephew off to the preparatory division of the Moscow Conservatory and enrolled him in the piano studio of the famously strict Nikolai Zverev. That did the trick, and gradually Rachmaninoff started making good on his talent. Soon he transferred to the senior division of the Conservatory, and was accepted into Ziloti’s piano studio. Rachmaninoff’s progress was impressive. He developed into one of pianism’s most revered figures, and his numerous recordings reveal that his outstanding reputation as a performer — impressive of technique, refined of tone, and analytical of approach — was fully merited. He composed four piano concertos, spread throughout his career — in 1890–91, 1900–01, 1909, and 1926 — and was the soloist at the premiere of each. Standing as a pendant to these is a fifth work for piano and orchestra, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, composed during the summer of 1934 and premiered that November. It does not pretend to be a concerto,
This somber tone poem unrolls in three connected sections. The opening Lento, in undulating 5/4 meter, would seem to depict the sea; the second section, marked Tranquillo and now in 3/4 time, is often taken to represent the island; and the third, a Largo in 4/4 time (eventually yielding to the earlier meters, particularly 5/4), may represent Death itself, leading at the end to a quotation of the funerary chant Dies Irae. Rachmaninoff apparently had a flash of inspiration for the work, as he described to an interviewer: My composing goes slowly. I go for a long walk in the country. My eye catches the sharp sparks of light on fresh foliage after showers; my ears the rustling undernote of the woods. Or I watch the pale tints of the sky over the horizon after sundown, and they come: all the voices at once. Not a bit here, a bit there. All. The whole grows. So The Isle of the Dead. ... When it came, how it
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Work composed: July 3–August 18, 1934 World premiere: November 7, 1934, in Baltimore, Maryland, by The Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, conductor, with the composer as soloist New York Philharmonic premiere: December 27, 1934, Bruno Walter, conductor, the composer as soloist Most recent New York Philharmonic performance: July 26, 2015, at Bravo! Vail in Colorado, Bramwell Tovey, conductor, Ann-Marie McDermott, soloist Estimated duration: ca. 24 minutes NOVEMBER 2015 | 27
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and it will not serve any purpose to argue that it actually is one, even though it displays dramatic balance between soloist and orchestra and is structured in a way that evokes the threemovement form of most Romantic concertos. The “theme of Paganini” on which Rachmaninoff based this work was Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, which that master of the violin had composed in the early 19th century. Subsequent generations of composers found the theme unusually intriguing; Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms all tackled the possibilities inherent in this melody, and, in ensuing years, such composers as Witold Lutosławski, Boris Blacher, and George Rochberg kept the tune in play. It’s a striking and memorable theme, and listeners will have only occasional trouble spotting it as Rachmaninoff pokes and prods it through the 24 variations that make up this piece (not counting a short introduction and, at the other end, a short coda). All the variations are connected without strongly punctuated breaks, but they fall into groups that give the piece an unfailing logic and momentum. The first ten variations show off the piano to tremendous effect and, in their growing sense of the demonic, seem to be playing
with the legend, widely circulated in Paganini’s day, that the violinist was in league with the devil. In the seventh variation Rachmaninoff therefore introduces another borrowed theme, which plays a secondary role to Paganini’s: the Dies Irae chant from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. (Also heard in The Isle of the Dead, performed earlier in tonight’s program.) After a few variations investigate how those melodies might work together, the first section winds down in Variation Eleven, a sort of cadenza that serves as a transition to the second section. On the whole this second, middle section (the composer referred to it as “love episodes”) adheres to a slower tempo than the first, but parts of it skip along quickly all the same. After that, Rachmaninoff embarks on the last six variations, effectively his finale, tying everything together by revisiting the Dies Irae in the final climactic pages of this justly popular masterwork. One has to respect a composer who gets a review like this for his First Symphony and somehow forges on: If there were a conservatory in Hell, if one of its talented students were instructed to write
Angels and Muses For his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Rachmaninoff worked and reworked the Caprice No. 24 by Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840). That Italian composer and violin virtuoso of an earlier generation had achieved a level of super-stardom in his own lifetime. Rumors circulated that he had achieved his unprecedented ability thanks to a pact with the devil. Paganini appreciated the attention that arose from this speculation, and he fanned the flames with what was considered a “demonic” appearance and sometimes eccentric behavior. In his 1836 novella Florentine Nights, the poet Heinrich Heine reported of a concert: At length a dark form appeared on the stage, looking as if it had risen from the underworld. This was Paganini in his black gala clothes: his black coat and vest of a terrible cut, such as is probably dictated by the hellish etiquette of Proserpine’s court. He was perhaps echoing Goethe, who in 1827 had observed: The demonic is that which cannot be explained in a cerebral and a rational manner. Paganini is imbued with it to a remarkable degree and it is through this that he produces such a great effect.
Paganini, as painted by Georg Friedrich Kersting, ca. 1830
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a program symphony on the “Seven 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 bring delight to the inhabitants of Hell. That review appeared in a prominent newspaper in 1897, and it must have stung all the more coming from César Cui, a more senior composer and a member of the band of Russian nationalists who staked a place in music history as “The Five” or “The Mighty Handful.” For the next three years, Rachmaninoff did not write a note, but turned instead to conducting. Beginning in January 1900 he also sought the help of Nikolai Dahl, a physician who was investigating psychological therapy through hypnosis. By the end of that summer Rachmaninoff was getting back on track as a composer. He started with achievable projects, such as an a cappella chorus, a love duet for an opera and then two movements of a piano concerto that had been on the back burner for several years. These were received enthusiastically at their premiere that December. Russian Musical Gazette critic Ivan Lipayev wrote: It has been a very long time since I have seen such a huge audience at a concert … and it has been long since the walls of Nobility Hall reverberated with such enthusi-
astic, storming applause …. Rachmaninoff appeared as both pianist and composer. Most interesting were two movements from an unfinished Second Piano Concerto. This work contains much poetry, beauty, warmth, rich orchestration, healthy and buoyant creative power. Rachmaninoff’s talent is evident throughout. Within a few months the composer supplied the missing first movement and the unfinished work became his Piano Concerto No. 2. Rachmaninoff was not entirely free of self-doubt, and he went into something of a panic just prior to playing the premiere of the complete concerto. Nonetheless, the reviews, not to mention the public acclaim, assured him that he was wrong to discount his abilities as a composer. The distance separating Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto from his First is considerable indeed. The First was the work of a freshly minted conservatory graduate, and on the infrequent occasions when we hear it today it is almost always in its significantly revised form, which Rachmaninoff produced in 1917. The Second is altogether richer, deeper, and ultimately more original, though the composer has in no way divorced himself from the tradition of the Russian piano concerto — and particularly from the model of Tchaikovsky, as the second and third movements especially show.
Piano Concerto No. 2 Work composed: second and third movements composed in 1900, drawing on material written up to a decade earlier; first movement composed in 1901; dedicated “To Monsieur N. Dahl” World premiere: second and third movements premiered on December 15, 1900, at Nobility Hall in Moscow; complete concerto premiered on November 9, 1901, also in Moscow, Aleksandr Ziloti, conductor; the composer served as soloist on both occasions New York Philharmonic premiere: December 18, 1914, with Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony (a forebear of the New York Philharmonic), Ossip Gabrilowitsch, soloist Most recent New York Philharmonic performance: December 7, 2012, at Prudential Hall in Newark, New Jersey, Juraj Valcˇuha, conductor, André Watts, soloist Estimated duration: ca. 33 minutes NOVEMBER 2015 | 29
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The first movement rises out of mysterious depths (in F minor) but quickly pounces on the tonic (C minor) and lets loose the first of the many striking themes that characterize this concerto, this first one being richly intoned by the strings. In fact, most of the melodies in this movement are entrusted to the orchestra rather than to the solo piano, which, to an unusual degree for a concerto, plays a somewhat ornamental or obbligato role. It is surely a virtuoso concerto, and yet Rachmaninoff seems intent on disguising the virtuoso element, even to the extent of banishing a first-movement cadenza, the moment in which a soloist would especially dazzle in Romantic and postRomantic concertos. The second movement is imbued with a sense of reverie, its material beautifully balanced between the soloist and the orchestra, surging in the middle with orchestral pushes that look forward to the sound of Prokofiev. In the finale, it is the second theme that would particularly enchant music lovers but the concerto as a whole proved irresistibly reassuring in an era when audiences were growing increasingly baffled by modern music. For good reason was
his Second Piano Concerto used for the soundtrack of David Lean’s 1946 film romance Brief Encounter. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard may pursue an impossible love affair in this classic movie, but their passion is sincere; and when one is looking for a musical expression of sincere, heartfelt, unrestrained passion, the search leads very naturally to Rachmaninoff. Instrumentation: The Isle of the Dead calls for three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, harp, and strings. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini employs two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, orchestra bells, harp, and strings, in addition to the solo piano. Piano Concerto No. 2 calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and strings, in addition to the solo piano.
Rachmaninoff and Romance Perhaps it was the sense of lush, romantic melancholia felt by Rachmaninoff when his Second Piano Concerto was created, but the grand theme of this work, which appears in the third movement, has become shorthand for how to dramatize romantic entanglements in pop culture. The melody inspired the song “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman, first recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1945: Full moon and empty arms The moon is there for us to share But where are you? A night like this Could weave a memory And every kiss Could start a dream for two Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in a scene from Brief Encounter
That same year, a recording of Rachmaninoff’s concerto with pianist Eileen Joyce was heard throughout the film Brief Encounter, a Noël Coward story about the budding romance between two married people who meet by chance at a London railway station café. The film enshrined the theme as the sound of doomed love. The theme was also used, to more comedic effect, in a married man’s overblown fantasies about seducing his upstairs neighbor, Marilyn Monroe, in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch. — The Editors
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