Download PROGRAM NOTES by Paul Schiavo Russian

PROGRAM NOTES by Paul Schiavo
Russian Romanticism
The program for this concert is the first of three the Seattle Symphony plays this season made up
entirely of music by Russian-born composers. (The others will be presented in March and June.)
The three works we hear were written within a span of less than 20 years, and represent the full
flowering of Russian Romanticism in music. The hallmarks of such music are propulsive and highly
expressive melodies, sumptuous harmonies and orchestral textures, and a colorful style of
instrumentation.
But beyond these readily identifiable qualities lies something more elusive: the music’s distinctly
Russian character. Many have attempted to define this in specific terms, not an easy task. They
have noted the emotional effusion of most Russian music, its mingling of sorrow and mirth,
earthiness and spirituality, its alternately grand and intimate tones. If these and other traits
attributed to Russian music seem, at times, contradictory, perhaps that is also part of its
particular national flavor. For as Fyodor Dostoyevsky observed, “Russians alone are able to
combine so many opposites in themselves at one and the same time.”
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Overture to The Tsar’s Bride
Born: March 18, 1844, in Tikhvin, Russia
Died: June 21, 1908, in Lyubensk, Russia
Work composed: 1898–99
World premiere: November 3, 1899, in Moscow, conducted by Mikhail Ippolotov-Ivanov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is known in the West almost exclusively through his orchestral music,
especially Capriccio espagnol and the perennially popular tone poem Scheherazade. But the
composer devoted most of his career to writing operas. Rimsky-Korsakov completed a dozen
such works before his death, in 1908. Most of them are still performed in Russia, but rarely in
Western Europe or the United States. Many of them are marred by dramatic shortcomings. Yet
they contain much of the composer’s best music, and portions of them — their overtures and
concert suites excerpted from the full scores — have begun to make inroads into the orchestral
concert repertory.
Completed in 1899, Tsarskaya nevesta, or The Tsar’s Bride, tells a dark tale of love, jealousy and
betrayal culminating in madness and death. A love potion and poisoning also figure in the plot,
which verges on gothic melodrama. The opera’s overture, which begins our program, establishes
the sense of conflict that pervades the work as a whole.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
The overture begins with a running theme that conveys, in addition to a strong Russian flavor, a
sense of urgency and, later, high drama. Opposing this is an ardent love theme, announced by the
violins with answering phrases from the woodwinds. These two ideas contend until nearly the
end of the piece, where Rimsky-Korsakov introduces a new subject. Beginning like a waltz from
one of Tchaikovsky’s fairy-tale ballets, it brings the overture to a surprisingly tranquil conclusion.
Scored for piccolo, 2 flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets and 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones
and tuba; timpani, harp and strings.
© 2016 Paul Schiavo