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Sergey Vasil’yevich Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op.18. (1900–1901) “What I try to do, when writing my music, is to say simply and directly that which is in my heart when I am composing. If there is love there, or bitterness, or sadness, or religion, these moods become a part of my music.” —Rachmaninoff Sergey Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor remains one of the late composer’s most well loved works and arguably his most emotional. Still in a state of despondency following the disastrous premiere of his first major work, Piano Concerto No. 1, several years earlier, Rachmaninoff seemed unable to recover his creative energies. The composer’s dear friends the Satin family eventually recommended that he seek treatment with Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who specialized in hypnosis techniques. Though the precise nature of Rachmaninoff’s treatment is not known, we can be thankful that it proved successful, for shortly afterwards the composer’s muse returned to him and he was able to begin his famous second piano concerto, dedicated to the doctor. Piano Concerto No. 2 was originally premiered without its first movement, in Moscow in 1900. The work was eventually presented in its entirety the following year, and both concerts solidly established Rachmaninoff’s fame as a composer. Showcasing the composer’s unique brand of Romanticism, this concerto possesses several characteristics that were unusual in his day. Among these is the opening—it was uncommon for the piano to open on a series of chords and bass notes loudening to fortissimo, only to retreat into the background and hand the orchestra the main theme. Reflective and yet refreshingly open, the concerto’s lyrical, drawn-out melodic lines lend a sense of poetic unity to the whole, which demands a great deal of maturity from its performers. Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36. (1877–1878) Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony was dearly cherished by its composer, who unabashedly maintained throughout his life that it was his best symphonic work. Written in the beautiful surrounds of Florence, Italy, and premiered in Moscow on 22 February 1878 (New Style Calendar), the symphony represents one of the most significant works to flow from Tchaikovsky’s pen during an emotionally harrowing period of his life. On the 18 July 1877, the same year in which the symphony was written, Tchaikovsky married the unfortunate Antonina Milyukova. The marriage was a disaster and within two months Tchaikovsky abandoned his wife to go abroad, never to see her again. Not long after, his bizarre and somewhat business-like relationship with the extremely wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck began to flourish, though the two agreed never to meet in person. Over the course of fourteen years, the composer would write a veritable novel to von Meck, discussing his daily life, work and personal challenges. On her part, von Meck would send Tchaikovsky regular allowances that enabled him to continue his work unburdened by financial concerns. Regularly referring to his Fourth as “our symphony” in his correspondence with the widow, Tchaikovsky dedicated the symphony to von Meck, though in an appropriately secret fashion the dedication reads simply: “To my best friend.” In one of his letters to von Meck, Tchaikovsky attempted for the first time to express in words the outline of a programme for the symphony. Though this “programme” was never meant to be read by anyone other than the composer’s patron, the document has been largely detrimental to the symphony’s acceptance as a formal composition. Nonetheless, it offers some insight into the symphony’s structure. Tchaikovsky’s use of the opening “fate” motif in the first movement, introduced by the horns and brass, clarifies the movement’s structure through its recurrence. In the second movement, the melancholy voice of the oboe introduces the canzona, or song. The Scherzo shows the composer at his most playful, and the joyful pizzicato plucking of the strings makes this movement one of the most memorable. Last but not least, the finale employs the Russian folk-song "In the Field a Birch Tree Stood" and races energetically towards its sublime conclusion. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov) Night on the Bare Mountain (1908) Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bare Mountain, begun after the latter’s death, has become a staple of the orchestral repertoire and remains the most well-known version of the work. By creating his own adaptation, Rimsky’s intention had been to turn Mussorgsky’s “unpolished” version into a “workable concert piece,” using that which was “the best and most appropriate” from the late composer’s musical materials. Though Rimsky’s arrangement differs markedly from Mussorgsky’s original, featuring altered keys and new passages, in spirit it remains closely allied to Mussorgsky’s intentions. Mussorgsky’s original Night on Bare Mountain, was both his first and last purely orchestral piece, and was inspired by the witches' Sabbath in Nikolay Gogol's story St John's Eve. Aside from Rimsky’s arrangement, premiered on 15 October 1886 at Kononov Hall in St. Petersburg, the work exists in two other versions. The first was written in the early 1860s, originally scored for piano and orchestra but soon after re-scored as an orchestral piece for a project that came to nothing. The second was a chorus and piano version written between 1872 and 1880, which was intended to be scored for orchestra at a later date. It was created for inclusion in an opera-ballet, Mlada, a scheme which was also destined for failure, and in an even more altered form for the opera Sorochintsy Fair, which was still unfinished at the time of his death. Night on Bare Mountain, therefore, was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime. The programme outline in Rimsky’s 1886 edition remains concerned with a witches’ Sabbath taking place on St. John’s Night on the Lysa Hora (in English “Bald Mountain”) just as in Mussorgsky’s original vision. As if arriving full circle, Rimsky’s edition leaves to Mussorgsky the final word on the piece’s interpretation, quoting from his autograph manuscript: “Subterranean sounds of unearthly voices. Appearance of the Spirits of Darkness. ... At the height of the orgy, the bell of the little village church is heard from afar. The Spirits of Darkness are dispersed. Daybreak.” Grace Edwards