Rachmaninov

by Robert Matthew-Walker

  The press, as usual, were more cautious. It is easy to pick holes in Rachmaninoff’s score, but the virtues of Aleko are considerable: not least the cavatina (known better in English-speaking countries as “The Moon is High in the Sky” through the subsequent Chaliapin recording), and the final chorus, which is quite haunting. Aleko contains flaws: the scenes end abruptly and the characterisation is sketchy, but, if played for all it is worth, as on the old complete Russian recording conducted by Nikolai Golovonov, the work can still make a tremendous impact.

  Tchaikovsky was right to encourage the young composer: he asked Rachmaninoff at rehearsal if he would object to having Aleko performed on the same evening as a new opera of his, Iolanta. Rachmaninoff later recalled: “He literally said — ‘Would you object?’ — he was 53, a famous composer — and I was only a twenty-year-old beginner!” Rachmaninoff, flushed with success, visited his grandparents General and Madame Boukatov, who must have been proud to hear of his triumph at first-hand. Afterwards, he stayed with Slonov on an estate at Lebedin in Kharkov. In idyllic surroundings, fired by the success of Aleko and attention from his host’s wife, Rachmaninoff composed easily. Three songs were completed and, together with three written earlier, were published by Gutheil as Opus 4. “Sing not to me, beautiful maiden” to a poem by Pushkin was dedicated to Natalia Satin, and became one of his more popular songs. At this time he also composed “The Harvest of Sorrow”, also known in English as “O Thou my field”, to a poem by Count Tolstoy, and “How Long, My Friend”, a setting of a poem by Count Golenischev-Kuzutzov, which was dedicated to the poet’s wife. A new work for two pianos followed swiftly: the Fantasie-Tableaux (also known as the Suite No 1) in four parts (or movements) — Barcarolle, A Night for Love, Tears and Russian Easter. Another work, for violin and piano, also appeared: Two Pieces, Opus 6, dedicated to Julius Conus,1 which are a Romance in D minor and a Hungarian Dance, similar to Opus 2 (the cello pieces for Brandukov). A liturgical work, for unaccompanied choir, “O Mother of God, vigilantly praying” was also written, and first performed in Moscow the following December 12th/25th by the Synodical Choir.

  The proofs for the Opus 3 set had been corrected and their publication, at the time of the Aleko première, was a further step forward. Although the complete set is rarely played together, analysis reveals a subtle thematic unity. The most notable feature of the world-famous Prelude is its descending motif, and this is clearly echoed in the opening Elégie (one says echoed, as the Prelude was composed first). The faster chromatic section of the Prelude is linked to the themes of the remaining pieces. The final piece, the Sérénade, is distinctly European, having a gypsy-like Spanish flavour. In the two-piano Fantasie-Tableaux Rachmaninoff turned to Russian poetry for inspiration: apart from the opening Barcarolle (similar to the Elégie of Opus 3) the movements offer a succession of moods. Love, tears and, in the finale, joy, with a clattering evocation of a Russian Easter. The celebration of Easter has always meant a great deal to the Russian people. Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Festival” Overture was the most famous musical celebration up to then, but Rachmaninoff’s piece has more in common with Stravinsky’s later Petrushka (1911) sharing the tumultuous activity which is a colourful feature of Stravinsky’s opening tableau.

  Nikolai Andreyevitch Rimsky-Korsakov, 1844-1908.

  Encouraged by his growing reputation, Rachmaninoff tackled an orchestral work. His purely orchestral pieces until then had all been unsatisfactory, and none had been performed. He was attracted by a short story of Chekhov, On the Road, which in turn was prefaced by two lines from a poem by Lermontov, called The Rock. The Rock or, as it is sometimes known, The Crag, became the title of Rachmaninoff’s piece, but he stated that the true source was the Chekhov story when he presented the author with a copy of the full score. He wrote on Chekhov’s copy: “To dear and highly respected Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, author of the story On the Road, the plot of which … served as the programme for this work.” It is a symphonic poem, owing a little to Liszt’s Les Préludes: for those wishing to chart Rachmaninoff’s progress as an orchestral composer it is significant, but only because compared to Prince Rostislav it has the virtue of relative brevity and concision. Both symphonic poems lack the lightness of texture which marked the 13-year-old’s Scherzo, and the colour of the orchestral dances from Aleko.

  As Rachmaninoff later recalled to Victor Babin, he had achieved much during the summer. He returned to Moscow with his growing portfolio, with still more ideas for composition. He took rooms, curiously enough in an apartment block called America, and by October had completed another group of songs, the six which comprise his Opus 8. The texts of three of these songs stem from Heine, and the Russian translation was by Plescheyev who, by a melancholy coincidence, had just died. Two of the others, also translated by the late poet, were of Ukranian origin. They form a fine set, including an absolute pearl “The Dream” (No 5) which was dedicated to Natalia Skalon, and from Goethe, “A Prayer” (No 6), dedicated to Maria Deisha-Sionitskaya the soprano who created the role of Zemfira in Aleko. The second song was dedicated to Slonov, but before they could be completed tragedy struck.

  On September 30th/October 13th Nikolai Zverev died aged sixty-one. Many musicians, including Tchaikovsky, attended the funeral and Rachmaninoff met the older composer then at Taneyev’s flat and showed him the Fantasie-Tableaux, obtaining permission to dedicate the work to him. The Undine business was finally settled: the libretto from Modest Tchaikovsky proved as unsatisfactory for Rachmaninoff as it had been for the librettist’s brother, and a few days after Zverev’s funeral he wrote to Modest shelving the project. The subject never arose again.

  The success of Aleko led to an invitation for Rachmaninoff to conduct the opera himself in Kiev in October. He missed hearing Tchaikovsky conduct the first performance of his new Pathétique Symphony in St Petersburg on October 16th/29th, for on that day Rachmaninoff caught the train for Kiev. He directed the first two performances (his debut as an operatic conductor) and returned to Moscow to prepare for the imminent first performance of the Fantasie-Tableaux at the end of November. It was as well he was unable to travel to the capital for a cholera epidemic had broken out and Tchaikovsky, during lunch a few days after the première of the Pathétique, had incomprehensibly drunk some unboiled water. It was contaminated, and after a short illness he died on October 25th/November 7th.

  Rachmaninoff was as deeply shocked and distressed at this news as was the whole musical world. The evening of Tchaikovsky’s death he began a second Trio Elégiaque to the memory of the master. Work on the new trio was interrupted for the first performance of the Fantasie-Tableaux, whose dedication to Tchaikovsky assumed poignant significance, on November 30th/December 13th when Rachmaninoff was partnered by Pavel Pabst. A fortnight earlier in St Petersburg, at the Tchaikovsky memorial concert, the Pathétique received its second performance: the effect on the audience of the finale, the tragic Adagio lamentoso, can well be imagined. Rachmaninoff’s own memorial to Tchaikovsky, the Trio, was finished on December 15th/28th three days after the choral anthem composed during the summer was premiered.

  The year which began so promisingly ended with tragic blackness, but there were encouraging signs. The publication of the Opus 3 pieces was a commercial success and Alexander Siloti, on a visit to England in November, played the Prelude in C-sharp minor at St James’s Hall in London. The resilience which Rachmaninoff had shown earlier enabled him to recover from the double-blow of the deaths of Zverev and Tchaikovsky, for in December he began a new set of piano pieces which he dedicated to Pabst as thanks for his collaboration in the Fantasie-Tableaux première. By the end of the year he completed three: a Nocturne in A minor, a Waltz in A major, and a Barcarolle in G minor. He probably also wrote the Romance for piano duet, and three further songs (“Song of the Disillusioned”, “The Flower had faded”, and “Do you Remember the Evening?”) at this time, but the songs were never incorporated into a group.

  The success of Gutheil�
�s publications aroused the interest of rival companies. Jurgenson, who, with Tchaikovsky’s death, lost his most important composer, turned to the young man who was rapidly making a name for himself. Although Gutheil had given Rachmaninoff a good start, he was unwilling to publish all his orchestral music, doubtless dissuaded by the greater cost compared to solo piano music which it entailed. When Jurgenson offered to publish the score of The Rock, Rachmaninoff felt no qualms in accepting. It also gave him the opportunity of associating with the publisher who had done much to help Tchaikovsky. In addition, Safonoff agreed to perform The Rock at a concert of the Russian Musical Society, by a happy coincidence on Rachmaninoff’s twenty-first birthday.

  First, there was an important all-Rachmaninoff concert at the end of January. At the beginning of the new year he composed four piano pieces, complementing those written in December, to form the seven Morceaux de Salon Opus 10 (the Trio was his Opus 9). Rachmaninoff played the Morceaux complete at the concert on January 31st/February 13th which also included, more importantly, the first performance of the second Trio Elégiaque by Rachmaninoff and Julius Conus (the dedicatee of Opus 6) and the faithful Brandukov. Apart from these two works, the concert also included Opus 2, Opus 6, some songs and Rachmaninoff playing the complete Opus 3 pieces.

  It is difficult not to be deeply impressed by the second Trio: it is true the piano part is florid and of enormous difficulty (at one point, towards the end of the long first movement, it erupts into a quasi-cadenza), and the finale is possibly too short to balance the large dimensions of the first two movements — but what passion, what genuine depth of feeling, is contained in this work! Rachmaninoff’s Opus 9 is a worthy memorial to Tchaikovsky.

  In America, which Tchaikovsky visited three years before, his death was keenly felt, and the New York Symphony Orchestra lost no time in mounting a performance of the last symphony. On March 17th, Walter Damrosch conducted its U.S. première in Carnegie Hall. A fortnight later Rachmaninoff celebrated his twenty-first birthday, and attended the première that evening of The Rock in Moscow under Safonoff.

  Rachmaninoff had by now taken a position as music-teacher at a ladies’ Academy, where he remained for several years. He needed the income for his correspondence discloses he had little money. To augment his income he quickly wrote a set of piano-duets in a popular style which, although slight and of no great interest, form an attractive suite of delicate charm which might be enhanced by skilful orchestration. These six pieces reflect the salon-type music which was fashionable at the time. Rachmaninoff was not the only young serious composer to earn a living in this way: in Finland (then still part of the Russian Empire) Sibelius did the same thing. It is curious that Rachmaninoff did not teach at the Conservatory. As a Great Gold Medallist he was eminently qualified. Perhaps Sergei thought the demands as a professor would leave him little opportunity to compose. The ladies’ Academy offered him greater freedom in that respect.

  He must eagerly have looked forward to the summer, for it again meant an idyllic interlude at Ivanovka with his cousins and the opportunity to compose at will. He took up the score of the Gypsy Fantasia, which he had begun two summers previously but had been unable to work on since the flood of music in other forms the year before. The première of The Rock probably spurred him on and the score, his Opus 12, was completed at Ivanovka. He read the proofs of Jurgenson’s score of The Rock at Kostroma where he had gone to give lessons, and even sketched ideas for a new symphonic poem based on Byron’s Don Juan in Count Tolstoy’s translation. A “Chorus of Spirits” survives, but another song was written at Ivanovka which he dedicated to Natalia Skalon, “I Wait for Thee”: this was carefully put on one side to await further songs for publication as a group.

  In New York the amazing Thomas Alva Edison demonstrated on April 14th his Kinetoscope, a forerunner of the modern cinema, in public at 1155 Broadway. Edison’s earlier invention, the phonograph, was developed further by Emile Berliner who demonstrated a horizontal disc, maintaining it afforded better sound reproduction, but it was not until a further three years before it became satisfactory.

  On his return to Moscow Rachmaninoff was nagged by several doubts. He finished the score of the Gypsy Fantasia calling it Caprice Bohémien (Capriccio on Gypsy Themes), and dedicated it to Peter Lodischensky, whose wife Anna was of gypsy extraction. Zverev, the Tchaikovskys, the Rubinstein brothers and many of the intelligentsia in Russia were fascinated by gypsy life. Clubs, restaurants and bars in the cities frequently engaged gypsy singers and dancers and, in the decades towards the end of the nineteenth century, gypsy folk-song and folk-life became a very popular form of escapism, a throw-back to a less regimented society than was both evolving and being imposed within Russia. Rachmaninoff was introduced to gypsy music by Zverev and came to love it, and traces of gypsy-like influences can be found in Rachmaninoff’s work from time to time. Apart from large works like Aleko (with its story of gypsy life) and the Caprice Bohémien, smaller works show this influence, and Anna Lodischensky exerted a fascination for Rachmaninoff. He had become enamoured of her, and dedicated to her the first of the Opus 4 songs (“Oh No, I beg You, Forsake Me Not”): but a much bigger work was looming in his mind.

  His thoughts again turned to composition: what was required was an important work. His musical sensibility had been groping towards this objective for some time. The projected symphonic poem of the previous summer bears that out, and in January 1895 he settled down to work on his first ‘real’ symphony, Opus 13.

  Once again D minor was the key, and it is interesting to see how often this key occurred in his work. His first orchestral work, the Scherzo, is in D minor, and so is the earlier one-movement Symphony. Prince Rostislav is also in D minor, and Aleko is based on this key as well. D minor is the tonality of many of Rachmaninoff’s songs and piano pieces, and the second Trio Elêgiaque is also in D minor. Whatever the fascination this particular tonality had for Rachmaninoff, it was certainly strong, so it was almost inevitable that the First Symphony should be set in that key. In another sense, because of the symphony’s tremendous artistic advance, it was possibly the work towards which he had subconsciously been striving for several years.

  Once he began the Symphony in January it consumed him. Working with that growing certainty which comes to artists when they know they are creating something worthwhile, with ever-increasing confidence he finished the work, easily his greatest composition up to that time, on August 30th/September 12th at Ivanovka. The score bore the somewhat cryptic dedication to “A.L.” (Anna Lodischensky).

  Jean Sibelius, 1865-1957.

  Apart from his teaching at the ladies’ Academy, Rachmaninoff received little income whilst writing the Symphony, so to earn more money he undertook a three-month concert tour once the Symphony was finished with the Italian violinist Teresina Tua. Rachmaninoff’s old friend Sakhnovsky, who tended him while he was ill during his last year at the Conservatory, and who was now well-connected in Moscow musical circles, asked the publisher and impressario Belaieff if he could do something for the young composer. Sergei had good friends: Taneyev and Glazunov also approached Belaieff with the same idea, and the St Petersburg musician agreed to programme The Rock for performance early in 1896.

  Belaieff was then fifty-nine and, being the son of a wealthy timber-merchant and a great music-lover, had formed a successful music publishing house in 1885 in Leipzig, as Germany was covered by international copyright (Russia at that time was not). In the same year he sponsored a series of Russian Symphony Concerts in St Petersburg. He also helped Rachmaninoff in another way: as Glazunov’s publisher, he issued piano-duet editions of his orchestral works, and Belaieff asked Sergei to prepare a duet version of Glazunov’s new Sixth Symphony which he could only accommodate after the tour with Teresina Tua.

  No sooner had they given the first concert of the tour in Lodz than Rachmaninoff had second thoughts as to the wisdom of proceeding. The tour opened on November 7th/20th, but two days later Rachmaninoff wrote to Slonov
saying although the concert had been a popular success, it had not been an artistic one. Apparently the Contessa Teresina Tua-Franchi-Verney della Valetta (the violinist’s full name) was more pleasing to look at than to hear, and she was also extremely mean. It was not long before the tour brought them to Moscow where on November 22nd/December 5th Rachmaninoff conducted the first performance of the Caprice Bohémien. Some commentators feel this work lacks any advance over The Rock, but it is certainly far less pretentious than the earlier symphonic poem. A typical piece of the Russian nationalist school, short and rhapsodic, it displays characteristics of the later Rachmaninoff. It was quite clearly modelled on the Caprices of both Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky (Spanish and Italian respectively), and those works are not examples of either composers’ art at its finest. Rachmaninoff was grateful for the inclusion of Moscow in the tour itinerary because he was able to conduct the Caprice and also resign from the rest of the tour, claiming he had not been paid for the concerts he had given.

  This enabled him to concentrate on other projects: the transcription of Glazunov’s Sixth Symphony, and a set of six choruses for women’s (or children’s) voices and piano — a direct result of his teaching post at the ladies’ Academy — published as Opus 15, as well as another set of songs, the twelve which comprise Opus 14 (the first, “I Wait For Thee”, dates from 1894). The remainder were all written in 1896, two of which, “The Little Island” and “Spring Waters”, are among the cream of his songs. “Spring Waters” is also notable for its extremely difficult piano part (similar to many songs from the set), but that may be due to the fact that the song is dedicated to his first piano teacher, Anna Ornatskaya.