Download PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Suite No. 4 in G

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
Suite No. 4 in G major, Op. 61, “Mozartiana”
Born: Russia, May 7, 1840, in Kamsko-Votkins, Russia
Died: November 6, 1893, in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Work composed: 1887
First performance: December 24, 1887, in Saint Petersburg; Tchaikovsky conducting
“Why do you not care for Mozart? In this respect our opinions differ, dear friend. I not only like
Mozart, I idolize him. To me, the most beautiful opera ever written is Don Giovanni ... In his
chamber music, Mozart charms me by his purity and distinction of style, and by his exquisite
handling of different instruments ... I could go on forever about this sunny genius.”
The author of this paean is Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a composer whose Russian Romanticism
seems far removed from the poised classical aesthetic that much of Mozart’s music exemplifies.
Indeed, Tchaikovsky embodied the spirit of 19th-century Romanticism as much as any other
musician of his generation. He was an extremely emotional personality, by turns melancholic
and euphoric, passionate and deeply fatalistic, and much of his music is charged with an intense
subjectivity. But despite the artistic and temperamental differences between Mozart and himself,
Tchaikovsky worshiped the Austrian composer’s work fervently. Here was “the Christ of
music,” Tchaikovsky declared, “the sunny genius” whose music “moves me to tears.”
In 1887 Tchaikovsky paid homage to his idol by arranging four of Mozart’s works into a suite
for orchestra, which he subtitled “Mozartiana.” The first of those works, composed as a piano
solo in 1789, is a Gigue, a dance with a rapid three-beat pulse. Mozart endowed the music with
echoic counterpoint after the manner of J. S. Bach. The ensuing Minuet orchestrates another
piano piece, written in 1780. “Preghiera” (“Prayer”) is a setting of Mozart’s famous Ave Verum
Corpus. Franz Liszt previously had made a elaborate and somewhat free transcribed this choral
motet for piano, and Tchaikovsky used Liszt’s arrangement as the template for his own.
The finale is by far the longest of the four “Mozartiana” pieces. Like the third movement, and in
some degree the first, it is the work of three composers: Mozart, Tchaikovsky and, in this case,
Christoph Wilibald Gluck (1714–1787). Gluck’s operas enjoyed much popularity during his
lifetime, and in 1784 Mozart wrote a set of variations on an aria from Gluck’s comic opera Le
recontre imprévue (The Unexpected Meeting). Tchaikovsky’s orchestration preserves, indeed
enhances, the humorous tone of Mozart’s piano solo.
What to Listen For
The initial Gigue packs contrapuntal discourse, angular rhythms and surprising turns of line and
harmony into two brimming minutes. In the third movement, Prayer, the introduction, closing
chords, harp embellishments and other details are additions by Franz Liszt and Tchaikovsky, and
reflect those composers’ impulse to refashion Mozart’s music in the manner of the 19th century.
Among other humorous touches in the finale is the mock-formal tone of an extended solo for
violin.
Program Notes © 2015 Paul Schiavo