Download Pyotr Il`yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

MASTERWORKS4: TCHAIKOVSKY & BEYOND
Suite from “The Sleeping Beauty”
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Written: 1889
Movements: Four
Style: Romantic
Duration: 20 minutes
Tchaikovsky wrote three full-length ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. Today’s
audiences love them, and holiday performances of The Nutcracker keep many a ballet company solvent all year long.
Given the popularity of Tchaikovsky’s ballets these days, it’s surprising to learn that his first two ballets received rather
tepid response. To understand why requires an understanding of what a strange beast nineteenth-century ballet really
was. They were often just pastiches, composed of short, disjunct dances, inserted into operas to satisfy wealthy patrons
who were more interested in the dancers than the opera. That era may have had great dancers, but the music was
“singularly poor.” When audiences encountered Tchaikovsky’s richly-composed music for ballet, they didn’t know what
to make of it.
Nearly ten years after Tchaikovsky wrote his first ballet, Swan Lake, the Director of the Imperial Theaters in St.
Petersburg commissioned him to write a ballet based on the children’s story La Belle au Bois Dormant (The Sleeping
Beauty) by Charles Perrault. “It suits me perfectly and I couldn’t want anything better than to write music for it,” he
replied. In a letter to his patron, Nadezhda von Mech, Tchaikovsky exclaimed,
It seems to me, dear friend, that the music of this ballet will be one of my best creations. The subject is so
poetic, so grateful for music, that I have worked on it with enthusiasm and written it with the warmth and
enthusiasm upon which the worth of a composition always depends. The orchestration is causing me . . . more
trouble than it used to, and the work is going much more slowly, but perhaps this is all for the best.
The premiere of The Sleeping Beauty did not go well. “In the theater, the music seemed symphonic,
melancholy,” lamented one reviewer. Decades later, when Sergei Diaghelev and the Ballets Russes mounted a
production of The Sleeping Beauty, it was none other than the great modernist Igor Stravinsky who sang its praises:
It gives me great happiness to know that you are producing that masterpiece, The Sleeping Beauty by our great
and beloved Tchaikovsky. . . . This work appears to me as the most authentic expression of that period of our
Russian life which we call the “Petersburg Period.” . . . The fact is that he was a creator of melody, which is an
extremely rare and precious gift. . . . The convincing example of Tchaikovsky’s great creative power is, beyond all
doubt, the ballet of The Sleeping Beauty.
The plot of the Ballet follows the well-known story. On her sixteenth birthday, Princess Aurora is put under a
spell by the evil fairy Carrabosse that causes her to sleep for one hundred years. At the end of that century, the good
Lilac fairy brings Prince Désiré to her. He awakens the Princess with a kiss, and a wedding ensues. Among the guests are
many fairy tale characters of Perrault’s other stories: Puss in Boots and the White Cat, Princess Florine and the Bluebird,
Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and Cinderella and her Prince.
The first movement of tonight’s suite is the music that introduces the evil fairy Carrabosse and the good fairy
Lilac. The second movement is the music of Princess Aurora. The third movement comes from the final act and is for
Puss in Boots and the White Cat. The celebrated final waltz is actually music from the beginning of the ballet when the
village is celebrating the birth of Aurora.
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Written: 1959
Movements: Four
Style: 20th Century Russian
Duration: 29 minutes
If you were a composer in the Soviet Union during most of the twentieth century, the sort of music you wrote
could get you in a lot of trouble. Dmitri Shostakovich twice found himself in such a situation with the Soviet authorities.
The first time came in the mid-1930's during what is now called “The Terror.” In an article entitled "Muddle instead of
Music," – probably written by Stalin himself – Shostakovich was accused of the worst possible artistic crimes. He was a
"bourgeois aesthete" and a "Formalist." Curiously, the dreaded knock on the door never came. Instead, Shostakovich
became an "unperson." Then, in 1937, after the premiere of his Fifth Symphony—his supposed "Practical Creative Reply
to Just Criticism"—his reputation was restored.
The second condemnation came in 1948. This time, Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's henchman in the cultural bureau,
announced "Soviet music was threatened by an invidious 'Formalist School' whose methods were radically wrong." The
composer Krennikov declared almost everything written by Shostakovich to be "frantically gloomy and neurotic" and
"alien to the Soviet People." The bureaucrats ordered the destruction of all of Shostakovich's recordings. His scores were
recycled to save paper. He “waited for his arrest at night out on the landing by the lift, so that at least his family
wouldn't be disturbed." Nadezhda Mandelstam described the mood of the times: “Nobody trusted anyone else, and
every acquaintance was a suspected police informer. It sometimes seemed as though the whole country was suffering
from persecution mania. . . .” For Shostakovich, it meant that he essentially quit composing serious music for public
performance for the next five years—until Stalin’s death in 1953. (Even then, the political “thaw” overseen by Stalin’s
successor Nikita Kruschev didn’t completely ease the pressure on the arts and artists, as the furor over Boris Pasternak’s
Doctor Zhivago attests.)
Shostakovich wrote his First Cello Concerto for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich. “[He] is a real Russian; he knows
everything and he can do anything,” Shostakovich said about him. “I’m not even talking about music here, I mean that
Rostropovich can do almost any manual or physical work and he understands technology.” For his part, Rostropovich
describes the first encounter with the concerto:
Shostakovich gave me the manuscript of the First Cello Concerto on August 2, 1959. On August 6 I played it for
him from memory, three times. After the first time he was so excited, and of course we drank a little bit of
vodka. The second time I played it not so perfect, and afterwards we drank even more vodka. The third time I
think I played the Saint-Saëns Concerto, but he still accompanied his Concerto. We were enormously happy . . .
The cello begins the concerto with a sardonic march-theme. Biting figures in the orchestra accompany the more
lyrical sections and the intensity rarely lets up in the first movement. The second movement, tender and sad, often has
the cellist playing very high harmonics on the strings—a favorite sound of Shostakovich. The third movement is an
impassioned monologue for the cellist. It leads directly into the fourth movement, bringing back the orchestra and its
sardonic flavor. A rollicking waltz intrudes and tries to lighten up the character. Instead, the march from the first
movement returns and brings the concerto to a twisted and frenetic close.
Divertimento, Suite from “The Fairy’s Kiss”
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Written: 1928—1934
Movements: Four
Style: Contemporary
Duration: 20 minutes
One of the towering musical giants of the twentieth century, Igor Stravinsky made his reputation with three
ballets that he wrote when he was in his thirties: The Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring. Contemporary
opinions ran hot and cold. One called Le Sacre du printemps (the Rite of Spring) “The Twentieth Century’s Ninth
Symphony,” while another called it a Massacre du printemps. Stravinsky was the “cave man of music,” or “Bach on the
wrong notes.” Sergei Rachmaninov said that his Firebird was “much more than genius . . . it is real Russia!”
In the 1920's, Stravinsky began investigating the music of Bach and Mozart. He abandoned the stylistic excesses
of his youth, and for the next thirty years, he wrote in a sort of lean and “intellectual” style known as his “neoclassical”
style. He would also occasionally “borrow” music of older composers and refashion it. One of his first attempts was with
Pulcinella, a one-act ballet based on the music of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710—1736).
In 1927, the Russian ballerina-turned-impresario Ida Rubinstein commissioned Stravinsky to write a new ballet.
(Rubinstein is also responsible for Ravel’s Bolero.) Stravinsky was free to choose any subject he wanted, but his friend
and collaborator Alexander Benois suggested something based on the music of Tchaikovsky. “My well-known fondness
for this composer, and, still more, the fact that November, the time fixed for the performance, would mark the
thirty-fifth anniversary of his death, induced me to accept the offer,” Stravinsky wrote in his Chronicle. “It would give me
an opportunity of paying my heartfelt homage to Tchaikovsky’s wonderful talent.” Interestingly, Stravinsky chose
Tchaikovsky’s piano pieces and songs instead of orchestral works. They include, among others, his Scherzo à la russe,
Humoresque, Evening Reverie, and Danse Russe.
Stravinsky chose The Ice Maiden by Hans Christian Anderson as the basis for the ballet’s plot. In the story by
Anderson, two hunters rescue a young Swiss boy, Rudy, after his mother falls into a crevice, but not before the Ice
Maiden kisses him. Resentful of losing the boy to the hunters, the Ice Maiden vows to get him back. Years later, on the
eve of his wedding, Rudy drowns in Lake Geneva, reclaimed by the Ice Maiden. “I have kissed you when you were little,
kissed you on your mouth,” the Ice Maiden gloats. “Now I kiss your feet, and you are mine altogether.” Stravinsky
divided the story into four acts and changed it considerably. A group of villagers replaces the hunters, and the Ice
Maiden is simply a fairy. On the evening before his wedding, Rudy and his fiancée join in a series of dances with the
country folk. Disguised as a gypsy, the fairy appears and predicts great happiness in his future. She brings him and his
fiancée to a mill. When the fiancée retires to put on her wedding dress, the fairy carries off the young man and kisses
him—this time on the sole of his foot. In 1934, Stravinsky shortened the ballet into a suite of four
movements—corresponding to the four scenes—and titled it Divertimento.
Sergei Diaghilev, the genius behind the Ballets Russes, and for whom Stravinsky wrote The Firebird, Petrouchka,
and The Rite of Spring, felt betrayed by the composer. After panning The Fairy’s Kiss in a letter to a friend, he lamented,
“Stravinsky, our famous Igor, my first son, has given himself up entirely to the love of God and cash.”
Suite from “Swan Lake”
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Written: 1875–1877
Movements: Four
Style: Romantic
Duration: Eighteen minutes
Swan Lake—Tchaikovsky’s first attempt at ballet—was not a success at first. In fact, it was a disaster. The
conductor confessed that ‘never in his life had he seen such a complicated score.” The costumes were shabby. Much of
the music wasn’t even by Tchaikovsky. The choreographer considered much of Tchaikovsky’s music “undanceable” so he
substituted music from other ballets. The first production of Swan Lake may have been only about thirty percent of
Tchaikovsky’s original score! One of the reviewers of the first performance noted that the choreographer only
demonstrated “remarkable skill in arranging gymnastic exercises,” and another felt there were a few successful
moments, “but in general the music of the new ballet is rather monotonous, dull . . . interesting probably only to
musicians.” It was only after Tchaikovsky’s death, when the legendary choreographer Petipa produced Swan Lake, that
the ballet began to achieve its everlasting fame.
The Imperial Opera in Moscow commissioned Swan Lake from Tchaikovsky in the early summer of 1875. “I
accepted the work, partly because I want the money, but also because I have long had the wish to try my hand at this
kind of music,” Tchaikovsky wrote. It took him only about two weeks to write out the entire ballet. He may have relied
on a collection of German fairy tales by Johann Musäus for the plot. Swan Lake tells the story of Prince Siegfried who
must declare his intentions for a wife at his birthday ball. Instead, distracted by a flight of swans, he heads off on a hunt.
At night, beside a lake, Siegfried spies a flock of swans, among them the beautiful Odette who has been turned into a
swan by the evil Rothbart. She begs the prince to spare the swans as they all, too, are under the evil spell. Of course,
Siegfried falls in love with Odette. Only his steadfast love will save Odette from the spell. He returns to the ball. Rothbart
appears with his daughter, Odile, disguised as Odette. Siegfried falls for the ruse and declares that he will marry Odile.
Too late, he realizes his mistake. He returns to the lake and Odette forgives him. Here, various ballet companies have
different endings. Some have the true love between Odette and Siegfried defeating Rothbart. Others have the two
lovers committing suicide by diving into the lake.
Tchaikovsky extracted several dances into an orchestral suite of five movements. (Tonight, you’ll be hearing
four.) The suite begins with the famous “swan theme.” After the dance of the “little swans,” there is the beautiful music
for the “white swan,” that has an extensive solo work for harp, violin and cello. The famous waltz is the music the
villagers dance as the guests arrive for the ball.
©2013 John P. Varineau