Rachmaninov

by Robert Matthew-Walker

  Alexander Konstantinovitch Glazunov, 1865-1936.

  In January 1896, before all these pieces were written, Rachmaninoff again travelled to St Petersburg where he heard Glazunov’s performance of The Rock on January 20th/February 2nd at the Belaieff Russian Symphony Concert. Belaieff agreed to include the new Symphony the following season also under Glazunov, so the reception was obviously cordial. Rachmaninoff was naturally delighted at the prospect.

  The year was spent working intermittently: the prospect of the symphony’s performance continually distracted him, and he probably composed at this time two movements for string quartet, in G minor and C minor. They were first performed posthumously in Moscow in October 1945 by the Beethoven Quartet, in the same concert at which the movements from 1889 were also heard for the first time. Rachmaninoff probably composed his contribution to a series of Four Improvisations for solo piano at this time, the other three being by Arensky, Glazunov and Taneyev. Towards the end of the year, Rachmaninoff began serious composition again: six Moments Musicaux for solo piano were written between October and December. These were something else: the mature Rachmaninoff, already present in the Symphony, was here revealed for the first time in his solo piano music. These Moments Musicaux Opus 16, dedicated to Alexander Zatayevitch, mark a turning-point in his career as a composer, being by far his greatest work for solo piano up to then.

  Glazunov confirmed the date for the first performance of the Symphony as March 15th/28th in the capital. Rachmaninoff travelled to St Petersburg for the rehearsals, which did not go well. Compared with The Rock, the Symphony is hardly recognisable as being by the same composer. It is a tricky score for both conductor and orchestra, and its length (45 minutes) was probably rather more than Glazunov had expected. Its language was also modern and new — in contrast with Glazunov’s own Sixth Symphony, written (apart from the finale) in a conservative style. The scherzo in Rachmaninoff’s Symphony doubtless gave trouble, for a cut of thirty-six bars was marked on the orchestral parts — by no means the last time Rachmaninoff agreed to cuts in his works. More changes, especially in the orchestration, were made by Glazunov. The actual text of the work — apart from the cut — was unchanged, but the character of many passages was altered by Glazunov’s recasting.

  Whatever the reasons, the première of the Symphony was catastrophic. As the last bars were played Rachmaninoff fled from the hall and paced aimlessly up and down the streets, beside himself with a mixture of fury and despair at the ruinous performance of the work which he had been eagerly awaiting for almost two years. The press had a field day — bad premières are always the composer’s fault in most critics eyes. The old feud between the cities sprang up again: Cesar Cui, then 62, gave the worst notice of Rachmaninoff’s life and others were not much better.

  For Sergei it was a dreadful experience: he was actually indifferent to the failure of the work, but what hurt him was the knowledge that he had written his greatest work and created a masterly composition, only to hear it murdered by a ham-fisted conductor. The cryptic dedication to the woman to whom he had formed an attachment meant the Symphony was a token of things other than musical, for the original score carried a quotation from Romans XII, v. 19: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”, which also appears in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Tolstoy’s novel concerns a young woman of society who made a loveless marriage with a civil servant older than herself. She falls in love with a young army officer and her love for him finally ends in her suicide. If Rachmaninoff’s attachment to Anna Lodischensky had become as deep as some believed, then the connection between the two Annas is clear and the Biblical quotation explained. In addition there is a musical link between the Symphony and ‘her’ song, published as Opus 4 No 1: the main musical idea for the Symphony is derived from the song’s piano accompaniment. The Symphony meant more to Rachmaninoff than many supposed.

  Anna Karenina watches as Count Vronsky falls within sight of the winning post (Painting by A.V. Vanezian).

  In a letter to Zatayevitch, two months later, Rachmaninoff’s reactions to the première are remarkably level-headed, laying the blame quite squarely on Glazunov. He knew the Symphony possessed unique qualities, which have still not been fully appreciated today, even by students of the composer. Initially Rachmaninoff had no intention of destroying the work but felt some editing might be necessary. Indeed, the following year he made a piano-duet version which Gutheil published, but the Symphony was never performed again during the composer’s lifetime. The original score was either lost or destroyed and it was not until after Rachmaninoff’s death that the original parts came to light and the score was reconstructed, using the published piano-duet version as a guide. The second performance took place in Moscow in 1945, and the first American performance on March 19th 1948, by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. They naturally used the edition then recently published in the U.S.S.R., but the parts on which the score was based were those altered by Glazunov. In 1977 the State Publishing House in Moscow issued a new critical edition of the Symphony, reverting to the parts as first copied before Glazunov changed them. This is the most authentic score in existence, and all subsequent performances should be given from it, and not from the now discredited Glazunov edition. It is only since World War II therefore that Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony has come to be known at all, and its originality and quality are still not generally recognised. Possibly the best assessment of this work is that by Robert Simpson:

  … It is a powerful work in its own right, stemming from Tchaikovsky and Borodin, but convinced, individual, finely constructed, and achieving a genuinely tragic and heroic expression … as an artistic whole, created naturally and without strain it leaves little to be desired … And at no time is it ever less than intensely personal, strongly compelling. All four movements are genuinely thematically integrated …

  This First Symphony is a real masterpiece: the tiny motto theme with which it opens begins, in altered form, each of the four movements, and a second motto theme, heard shortly after, is threaded through the score with a subtlety and care that bears the closest analysis. In the coda of the finale, its resemblance to the plainchant Dies Irae theme is revealed — surely a reference to the fate of Anna Karenina — and, in view of Rachmaninoff’s later use of the plainchant theme, highly significant. The orchestration, especially in the scherzo, is breathtakingly deft and assured. There is little doubt that this impressive work should be performed as frequently as Rachmaninoff’s later symphonies.

  1 ‘Whose brother, Lev Conus, was a composition finalist along with Rachmaninoff.

  5 New Directions

  In spite of the public humiliation of the première of the Symphony, the letter to Zatayevitch shows the composer’s calm and confident state of mind. Three weeks after the scandal, while visiting his grandparents in Novgorod, he sketched ideas for a new Symphony but they came to nothing. The letter, however, does not tell the full story. Rachmaninoff was affected by the failure of the Symphony and, on his return to Moscow, he gave up his rooms in the America apartment-house and spent the summer with the Skalons on their estate. But this summer was one without composition. That he knew the originality and worth of his Symphony is beyond dispute: his musical sensibility must have told him that to pursue the line of the work would have taken him into areas fraught with artistic and commercial disaster. This possibly led him to abandon the sketches for the new Symphony but, such was his all-round musical ability (he had already conducted in the concert-hall and the opera house), he might have felt his future (financially, at any rate) lay in a conducting career. If Glazunov could get away with it, surely he could do much better? As if to answer these imaginings, Rachmaninoff received a marvellous offer.

  A wealthy Moscow businessman who had made a fortune from the railways founded the Moscow Private Russian Opera Company in 1885, and for the 1897-98 season invited Rachmaninoff to become deputy conductor. The man was Savva Mamontov, who possessed as shrewd a judgement for music
as he had shown in his business dealings for he engaged many gifted artists. Among them at that time was the young bass Feodor Chaliapin, who was Rachmaninoff’s exact contemporary, being less than two months older than Sergei.

  Rachmaninoff accepted Mamontov’s offer eagerly, but he had little inkling of the talent or methods of the musical director, an Italian called Esposito who, on hearing the news of Rachmaninoff’s appointment, began to fear for his own. He suggested Rachmaninoff conduct Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar but he only allowed one rehearsal, with the result that the performance was in danger: to save the situation, Esposito ‘agreed’ to conduct. Rachmaninoff, however, had his superb training and memory to fall back on: he grasped the essential features of his task very quickly, and for his debût on October 12th/25th conducted Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, forming a close friendship with Chaliapin, which lasted until Chaliapin’s death. He then conducted Dargomïjsky’s Rusalka with Chaliapin, and was highly praised by the press. Other operas conducted by Rachmaninoff during this season, which was proving successful, were Bizet’s Carmen, Gluck’s Orphée and, early in 1898, Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, again with Chaliapin. This suffered somewhat as the theatre the company had been using burned down and the new home was less congenial, making adjustment difficult.

  However, Rachmaninoff was clearly a competent operatic conductor and he liked the job enormously. It was a pity that events happening in America had not occurred a little earlier. In February 1897 Fred Gaisberg established the world’s first gramophone recording studio, over a shoe shop on 12th street in Philadelphia. In view of what was soon to happen, it would have been possible for recordings to have been made of extracts from these performances with Rachmaninoff conducting.

  Mamontov was pleased with his young conductor and retained him for the following season. During the summer, Rachmaninoff and Chaliapin stayed with other members of the Opera at Putyantino, in Yaroslav, which belonged to a friend of Mamontov. They spent many hours studying Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, which was scheduled for the following season. Rachmaninoff had to decline an invitation from Alexander Goldenweiser for a new Piano Concerto, owing to pressure of work and because ideas were not flowing as freely as they had a year or two before. The inspiration now was for stage works: he again approached Modest Tchaikovsky for a libretto, on Shakespeare’s Richard II, possibly with Chaliapin in mind. Modest declined, but suggested Francesca da Rimini instead: this was a novel idea for Rachmaninoff and one which greatly appealed to him. But he had to shelve his plans as preparations for the new season, a short illness, a brief concert tour, as well as the duet version of the Symphony, all left him no time for composition.

  He was pleased to learn of Alexander Siloti’s successful European tour during which Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor was received with the greatest possible enthusiasm, particularly in England, where, on February 22nd in the small Queen’s Hall, his Trio Elégiaque No 2 was played for the first time, at a Walenn Chamber Concert, by the brothers Gerald and Herbert Walenn, with Herbert Parsons, piano.

  Meanwhile, the repressive regime of Alexander III, who had died in 1894, was tempered by his far less despotic son, Nicholas II, and by the fiscal policies of the remarkable Minister of Finance, Sergei Witte, who did much to create a thriving economic climate. However, nothing could disguise the iron grip of the Tsar. In the 1890s many Russians emigrated like Morris Gershovitz, the son of the St Petersburg gunsmith. Gershovitz met Rose Bruskin in St Petersburg and when her family emigrated to the United States he followed them. The immigration authorities entered his name as ‘Gershvine’: shortly after his arrival, he married Rose. Their first son Ira was born on December 6th 1896, and a second son Jacob followed on September 26th 1898. To the baby’s brother, Ira, the boy was always known as ‘George’.

  Siloti’s success in England resulted in Rachmaninoff being invited by the Royal Philharmonic Society of London to appear in the Queen’s Hall to play and conduct his own music. It was a great honour which he accepted, but it had to wait until the second season at the opera was finished. Once it was over he travelled to London, making the 1,937-mile journey in two-and-a-half days, changing trains at Warsaw owing to the difference in track widths.

  Rachmaninoff managed to compose two piano pieces before he left for London early in 1899: a Morceau de Fantasie in G minor on January 11th/24th, and a Fughetta in F major on February 4th/17th, just three weeks before Gustav Mahler conducted the first complete performance of Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony in Vienna, and a month before Richard Strauss conducted the première of Ein Heldenleben in Frankfurt on March 3rd — a work dedicated to Willem Mengelberg, the conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Rachmaninoff appeared at the Queen’s Hall London on April 19th playing the by-now famous Prelude, and the Elégie from the same set. He conducted an aria from Borodin’s Prince Igor and The Rock. The reviews were somewhat non-committal, but so far as one can judge the concert was a success. Rachmaninoff was invited to return the following year to play his Concerto. Although Rachmaninoff accepted he told the Royal Philharmonic Society that he would compose a new Concerto for the occasion. Evidently he was dissatisfied with the F-sharp minor. Had he stayed longer in London he would have been able to attend the première of Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations in St James’s Hall, exactly two months to the day after his own debût, conducted by Hans Richter. However, his return to Russia was swift for he had to prepare for a concert performance of Aleko, as part of the Pushkin centenary celebrations. Rachmaninoff was doubly excited by the prospect of these celebrations for it meant he would have the chance to conduct his work again, and Chaliapin would be making his debût in the title role. Chaliapin was also looking forward to the concert. Later in life Chaliapin always maintained Rachmaninoff was his ideal conductor. As Ivor Newton, the great piano accompanist, wrote:

  … He would say, ‘When Rachmaninoff conducted for me, or accompanied me at the piano, we sang as one man.’

  At the performance, Chaliapin was inspired: Rachmaninoff recalled how

  … he sobbed at the end of the opera. Only a great actor, or a man who had experienced such sorrow as Aleko had can sob like that.

  In spite of his success at the People’s Opera Rachmaninoff resigned at the end of the second season, and he had not been excited by his London performance as he should have been. The performance of Aleko, however memorable artistically it had been, did not seem to fire his enthusiasm greatly. For the first time in his life, but certainly not the last, Rachmaninoff felt his career as a composer was suffering as a result of the demands of his other careers as pianist and conductor. But the freedom which his resignation gave him was not matched by a flood of inspiration: at a time when he should have been feeling on top of the world, Rachmaninoff was going through a difficult phase. It is frequently supposed that the failure of the Symphony brought on a period of depression, but Rachmaninoff’s hectic activity during the succeeding eighteen months clearly shows he had little time for composition, even if he had had the inclination. Now the opportunity was there (and the promise for a new Concerto for London), but he was not able to seize it. Possibly the ending of his relationship with Anna Lodischensky contributed to this feeling of lassitude, which became so marked that his family and friends became concerned. Rachmaninoff was not ill physically or even mentally — he was simply unable to work.

  Feodor Chaliapin, the great Russian bass, in the title rôle of Boris Godunov.

  His cousin’s family, the Satins, came to his help. They mentioned Rachmaninoff’s condition to a friend, Princess Alexandra Leivin (whose sister was Director of the Smolnyi Institute in St Petersburg) who knew Leo Tolstoy. As Rachmaninoff deeply admired Tolstoy, the Princess arranged for Sergei to meet the great man, who possessed a considerable knowledge of music, in the hope that the experience would inspire him. She primed Tolstoy as to Rachmaninoff’s condition, but the first meeting on February 1st/14th was hopeless. Rachmaninoff later recalled:

  … He saw
how nervous I was. And then, at table, he said to me, ‘You must work. Do you think that I am pleased with myself? Work. I must work every day’, and similar sterotyped phrases.

  A second visit was arranged, this time with Chaliapin, who recalled:

  … For the first time in my life I was to see Tolstoy face to face, a man whose thoughts and words had already touched the world. Hitherto I had only seen him in photographs, and now here he was in person, standing near the chess table, talking to Alexander Goldenweiser. My first surprise was to realise that he was shorter than medium height. In the photographs he had seemed so tall … How simply and charmingly he took my hand, how ordinary the questions he asked me. How long had I been in the theatre? How boyish I looked. Rachmaninoff was a little braver than I, and yet he too was excited, and his hands were quite cold. He whispered in my ear, ‘If they ask me to play I don’t honestly know if I’ll be able to. My hands are like ice’. And Tolstoy did ask him to play. I can’t recall what he played, I only know of my own worrying thought. ‘Suppose he asks me to sing’. My heart went further into my boots, when Tolstoy looked Rachmaninoff straight in the eye and asked, ‘Tell me, does anyone want this type of music?’

  For someone in Rachmaninoff’s state of mind and in the company of a friend, the question could not have been more demoralising. This second attempt to get Sergei working again proved equally disastrous. The pieces he had written since leaving the People’s Opera, including an arrangement of two folk songs, one Russian and the other Ukranian, for chorus, were all trifles. Only one, the folk-song “Shoes”, survives. These were composed towards the end of 1899 before Tolstoy’s visits. At that time, on November 18th in Buda-Pest, Eugene Ormandy was born.