“Années de pèlerinage”, 2nd Year – Liszt
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Category: Tchaikowsky
February 15, 2019
Andrea del Castagno
January 24, 2019
the Nutcracker Suite – Tchaikovsky
original costume sketch for “The Nutcracker” (1892)
Ivan Vsevolozhsky
__________
it didn’t take me long, after wondering
about precedents for Debussy’s nursery
piece, Children’s Corner, to ferret out
Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, a work
with a similar theme, childhood
fantasies
but the Nutcracker Suite
l. Miniature Overture
ll. Danses caractéristiques
a. Marche
b. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies
c. Russian Dance
d. Arabian Dance
e. Chinese Dance
f. Reed Flutes
lll. Waltz of the Flowers
is not to be confused with the complete
ballet, from which it had been excerpted
to great acclaim before the ballet itself
was presented, but to much less
enthusiasm, until George Balanchine
revived it in the 1960s
note that Tchaikovsky’s Suite, in 1892,
contains still the traditional elements
of the suite – see above – a prelude, or
overture, followed by a series of
dances, only a few years before
Debussy’s Children’s Corner, 1908,
redefined the form, made the
movements indiscriminate, not
confined to dance rhythms
note also that Tchaikovsky sounds
a lot more like the Strausses, father
and son, Romantics both, than he
does like Debussy, an Impressionist,
a generation later only
here’s the orchestral Nutcracker Suite,
a suite, in other words, is not limited
to one instrument
here’s a riveting version of it for two
pianos, not to be missed
R ! chard
October 20, 2018
the essential Romantic violin concertos
“The Violin“ (1916)
_____
if I was able to bring up a list of
ten top Romantic piano concertos
throughout the 19th Century earlier,
I can number of violin concertos
only three essential ones, with,
however, two other significant
such compositions, which remain,
for one reason or another,
peripheral, secondary
more about which later
but the exalted three are situated
conveniently, the first, at the very
beginning of the Romantic Era,
Beethoven’s magisterial, even
extraordinary, Opus 61 in D major,
1806, and close doubly with the
two others, Tchaikovsky’s
resplendent work, words cannot
do it justice, and Brahms’ no less
transcendental one, at its very end,
1878, none are negligible, it’d be
like missing the Eiffel Tower while
in Paris, skipping the pyramids
along the Nile, they are part of our
cultural consciousness, it would
be an utter shame to pass them
by, they are our glory, our
magnificent heritage
it should be noted that the
concerto, be it for violin, piano,
cello, what have you, a soloist
in concert with an array of
instruments, is the perfect allegory
for the Romantic Era, an individual
in contention with a community,
under the influence of a conductor,
a mayor, a mentor, a polity, the
individuality afforded by the
proclamation of human rights in
the aftermath of the French
Revolution, and its social
consequences, musically
manifested
the match might be fraught,
should be, though with
compromise, considerate
accommodation, fruitful,
hopefully even transcendental,
if not at least entertaining,
cooperation, music seems to
infer eventual concord,
congress, harmony, a way out
of, even dire, distress, or at
least point the way toward it
concertos die out, incidentally, in
the 20th Century, you don’t hear
of very many, if any at all, after
Rachmaninoff, they are gone,
much like later, in the 1950s, the
waltz, forever, with the wind
may they rest in peace
R ! chard
September 26, 2018
Piano Concerto no 1 in D minor, opus 15 – Brahms
“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog“ (1818)
_____________
if Beethoven built the Church, along
with Goethe maybe, of Romanticism,
and be assured Romanticism is an
ideology, a moral outlook, a
motivational perspective, much like
the economy is nowadays,
supplanting any more humanistic
imperatives, Brahms put up one of its
Cathedrals, just listen, the First Piano
Concerto is a monument, as mighty
as the Cologne Cathedral musically,
right next to Bonn, incidentally,
Brahms‘ birthplace
with the disintegration of the
supremacy of the Catholic deity
at the onset of the Protestant
Reformation, Luther, Calvin,
Henry Vlll and all that, bolstered
by new discoveries in scientific
speculation, that the earth wasn’t
flat, for instance, that it revolved
around the sun rather than the
other way around, contradictory,
though convincing, voices began
to abound, excite question
in the 18th Century, the Age of
Reason, the Christian Deity fell,
never effectively to be put back
together again, see for Its final
sundering, Nietzsche
in France, after the Revolution,
the Church was officially removed
from political consideration,
countermanding its centuries of
morally heinous depredations,
the United States had already at
its own Revolution separated it
from State
Romanticism was an answer to
a world wherein there might not
be a God, a world with, however,
a spiritual dimension, to respond
to the clockwork universe
envisioned by the earlier epoch,
the Enlightenment, a world where
everything could be categorized,
analyzed, predicted
Romanticism called for the
inclusion of inspiration in the mix,
there are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy,
as Shakespeare would, for
instance, have it – “Hamlet”,
1.5.167-8
poets became prophets thereby,
if they could manage it, very
oracles, the world was blessed
with, at that very moment,
Beethoven, far outstripping the
likes of, later, for example, Billy
Graham, or other such, however
galvanizing, proselytizers,
whose messages would’ve been
too, to my mind, literal
for music cannot lie, obfuscate,
prevaricate, music cannot be
fake
and then there was Schubert,
and Chopin, Tolstoy, Dickens,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Robert, her husband,
Tchaikovsky, Caspar David
Friedrich, the Johann Strausses,
Byron, Shelley, Keats, whose
artworks, all, are as profoundly
in our blood, our cultural system,
as, if not more so than, our
present information about the
details of our Christian myths,
despite a superfluity of them
even, throughout the long
indeed Middle Ages, and right
up to, and including, the still
fervent then Renaissance, for
better or for worse still, for us
what Romanticism did, and
specifically through the work
of these seminal artists, was
give each of us a chance,
show us how to come
through trial and tribulation,
what a faith does, any faith
it said, here, this is my dilemma,
and this is how I deal with it
for me, Beethoven’s 32nd
Piano Sonata is, soundly, the
epitome of that, but listen to
Brahms put a stamp on it
with undaunted authority
we might be ultimately of no
consequence in an indifferent
universe, they say, but, hey,
this is what we can do, and
do gloriously, while we are
at it
Woody Allen picks up the
purpose in our own recent
20th Century, following in
the earnest footsteps of his
Existential mentor, the much
too dour, I think, Ingmar
Bergman
but that’s another story
entirely
meanwhile, listen
also watch, the conductor here,
a complete delight, is right out
of “Alice in Wonderland“, I
promise you’ll love it
R ! chard
September 13, 2018
Piano Concerto no 2 in G major, opus 44 -Tchaikovsky
“Beech Grove I“ (1902)
________
if a sonata, or any composition for one
instrument, is a meditation, a rumination,
an introspection, a concerto is its entire
opposite, it’s a declamation, a very
harangue, the performer is not only
before an audience, but before an
orchestra, before the conductor of that
orchestra, that soloist had better be,
therefore, something
Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Piano Concerto
hasn’t cut the cultural mustard, you’ve
probably never heard of it, never mind
heard it, not even in the miasma of our
collective unconscious
why
who knows, it’s magnificent
I suspect that Moscow’s distance,
St Petersburg’s, might’ve had something
to do with it, Russia would still have been
a backwater to Europe, regardless of what
Catherine the Great might’ve done for its
intellectual edification, indeed a veritable
Elizabeth the First, Queen of England,
she, in her sponsorship of the arts
something like that happened, but in
reverse, to Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele
in art, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, the
Second Viennese School in music, in
literature, Robert Musil, his “The Man
Without Qualities“ a very rival to
Proust‘s epic trip down memory lane,
“Remembrance …“, when the centre
of gravity for the arts moved from
Vienna to Paris in the late 19th
Century with the advent of
Impressionism
France had entered its Fourth
Republic by then, was to finally
entrench its democracy, and we got
Monet, Debussy, and indeed Proust
instead, not to mention all of that
city’s celebrated others
leaving creative Vienna, meanwhile,
the undisputed engine of the Zeitgeist,
the spirit of the times, for over three
quarters of an earlier century, thereby,
in the dust
New York would take over in the
1950s, similarly, for a time, Andy
Warhol and The Factory, eclipsing
any other town
in other words, location, location,
location, in tandem with historical
events
R ! chard
September 8, 2018
Piano Concerto no 1, opus 23 – Tchaikovsky
“The Birth of Venus” (1485)
___________
if there’s a piano concerto that dominates
the 19th Century, it’s Tchaikovsky’s First
Piano Concerto, not even Beethoven’s
Fifth, to my mind, matches its celebrity,
one thinks Romantic Period, one thinks
this iconic masterpiece
Tchaikovsky had the advantage of
absorbing not only Beethoven by this
point in history, but also Chopin, the
narrative power of the former, with
the mesmerizing textures of the latter,
what could go wrong but insufficient
genius
of which Tchaikovsky manifestly had
more than plenty, enough to verily
stop your breath
many towering performers have
challenged this concerto‘s peaks,
some even historically, you’ve
heard them, I won’t reiterate
but listen to what Yuja Wang does with
this challenge, and you tell me if she
doesn’t conquer its tribulations,
despite, or abetted by, her
controversial dress
she is a vixen, manifestly, at least in,
admittedly, her attire, but should a
vixen play as brilliantly, what does
one have to counter her provocative
presentation but her innate femininity,
her, too often castigated, female pulse,
something the world could do with a
lot more of
Venus, with all her allure, was goddess
for centuries before women were
obliterated from the dominant Christian
pantheon, the Father, the Son, the Holy,
I ask you, Ghost, with no equal female
foundational representative
Yuja Wang, a modern day Venus abetted
by her evident attendant muses, the
symbolic, here, orchestra, see above,
could play nude, as far as I’m concerned,
she’d still be transcendent, and I’m not
even heterosexual
girlfriend, I say, however proper, modest,
blushing, get a grip
not to mention that Tchaikovsky is also,
in this outing, once again, astounding
R ! chard
September 7, 2018
“Grand Piano Sonata” in G major, opus 37 – Tchaikovsky
“Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book“ (1888)
__________
if Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Piano Sonata hasn’t
remained in the canon, if it isn’t one of
the pieces you’ve heard if only through
the grapevine, it’s, I suspect, cause it’s
essentially not an advance on other more
prescient works in the form, other more
oracular compositions
Beethoven had paved the way for the
Romantic Period, nearly invented it,
established incontrovertibly the
dimensions of the sonata, notably its
purpose, its structure, Schubert had,
however belatedly, confirmed it, with
works equal to his, and even, here
and there, superior, listen
but having reached the summit of
what a sonata could say, the form
little by little withered in its several
Romantic permutations, Tchaikovsky
here, for example, and became mere
elaborations upon a waning theme
rather than exciting, and revelatory,
productions
the sonata would survive, but
transformed by another era,
Impressionism, Tchaikovsky would
as well, of course, but not through
his sonatas
his Second, however, is not not
worth a listen, would you pass,
for instance, on a less celebrated,
perhaps, van Gogh, see above
Tchaikovsky’s, therefore, Second
R ! chard
September 2, 2018
Piano Sonata in C# minor, opus 80 – Tchaikovsky
___________
for Sarah and Rachel, the daughters
of the son of a dear cousin, after a
belated lunch recently, two young
girls, 14, 16, in bloom, as Proust
would say, who speak not only
music, but French and English,
fluently, I checked – perhaps
even German, their Oma
lives with them – they also
play the flute, the piano,
and sing, what could be
I ask you, more beautiful,
two young girls in bloom,
indeed in very blossom
or am I being too French
the form of the sonata had been established
decisively during the Classical Period, out
of the rudiments of Bach’s own such pieces,
Mozart and Haydn had given the concept its
final shape, its structure, three or four
contrasting movements, by definition all
entertainments
Beethoven kicked the entertainment part
right out of the ball park, made his show
into a veritable transcendental meditation,
rather than to merely applaud, audiences
gasped, were meant to be awed, as I still
ever am by his musical speculations
but by definition as well, a sonata is a
piece for a single instrument, therefore
inherently introspective, whether the
player has an audience or not, soloists,
note, play easily on their own
even an accompanied sonata, as violin
sonatas often are, for instance, or this
one for two pianos, would lose the
intimacy of a solo piece, for having
someone playing, however compatibly,
over one’s shoulder
in other words, a piano sonata is, by
definition, a monologue, a soliloquy,
where notes tell the story that words
would intimately, even confessionally,
in poetry, convey
the emotions that are elicited from
a piece are as real as they would
be from any literary alternative,
except that they’re quickened, like
aromas, through the senses, rather
than through divisive, by definition
confrontational, logic
rosemary reminds me always, for
instance, of one of my departed
aunts, like the taste of a madeleine
dipped in tea opened the door for
Proust to an entire earlier epoch,
the seed, the subject, of his
disquisition on Time, “À la
recherche du temps perdu“, “An
Exploration into Elapsed Time“,
my own translation, none of the
published proffered titles
having rendered the subtlety
of the shimmering original
rosemary, in other words, speaks,
if even only to me
listen to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano
Sonata, in C# minor, opus 80, one
of only two of his, what do you
hear, think, feel
R ! chard
August 28, 2018
First Symphony, “Winter Dreams”, opus 13 – Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1866)
______
for Elizabeth, who said she’d
“be all ears once it happens“,
this first of my Tchaikovskys
the example of Beethoven was
a hard act to follow, no one
nearby, which is to say, in the
vicinity of Vienna, which had
ruled the musical world for
more than half a century, from
Mozart to late Beethoven,
would be able to match his
eminence, not even the,
however mighty, Brahms
but in the East a star was born, in
1840, of extraordinary dimensions,
to tower above the High Romantic
period, which shone with, were it
not for its distance from the
European central galaxy,
comparable brightness
Beethoven had written for every
instrument, every combination
of instruments, every voice,
every combination of voices,
no other composer had, nor
has since, done that but the
incandescent Tchaikovsky,
who’d ever ‘a’ thunk it
symphonies, concertos, string
quartets, sonatas, variations,
ballets, operas, liturgical
pieces, there wasn’t anything
he didn’t touch, and transform
into magic
here‘s an early work, his Opus 13
only, in order to get chronological
perspective, and, as I pursue this
compelling trajectory, a sense of
his musical evolution, his First
Symphony, “Winter Dreams”*
listen for troikas flying across
the steppes, hear the bells tingle
from their fleeting carriages, be
swept away by the exhilarating
majesty
R ! chard
* Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra,
Joshua dos Santos, conductor
November 25, 2017
“Symphony no 6 in B minor, opus 54” – Dmitri Shostakovich
“Great Expectations. USSR pavilion on 1939 New York World’s Fair“ (1939)
____________
“I hope that these few preparatory words
can give you an insight that may permit
you to experience this strangely
heterogeneous work as a single entity,
a flashpoint in musical history”, says
Leonard Bernstein, somewhat,
admittedly, grandiloquently, in an indeed
thrilling introduction to Shostakovich’s
Sixth Symphony in B minor, opus 54
that he reiterates several of the points
that I earlier brought up does me no
disservice, coming especially from a
person of such high quality, pedigree,
in the musical world, I’m abashed,
bashful, indeed blushing, that my
humble insights have been so
eminently corroborated
but I cannot second his enthusiasm
for Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony,
a failed, to my mind, entity, a long
introductory lament that lingered
long after its “best before” date,
followed by indifferent, though
perhaps energetic, yet unrelated,
final movements, the instrumentation
might be, admittedly, brilliant, the
Shostakovichian precise array of
sounds, but the sum is less than the
parts, I think, I took home only
confusion, as did the crowd,
apparently, at its first presentation,
Leningrad, November 21, 1939,
Mravinsky conducting, wow, an
even more convincing argument,
maybe, than Bernstein’s, however
rousing, interpretation
for your information, I’ve included
Tchaikovsky’s Sixth, according to
Bernstein intimately related, he
explains, to Shostakovich’s Sixth
you’ll note how different, however,
these two symphonies are compared
to how similar in so many respects
Beethoven’s and Shostakovich’s
Fifths are, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth is
manifestly more Romantic than
Revolutionary
but imagine Tchaikovsky starting and
ending with an adagio, how audacious,
daring, though not particularly efficient,
I think, not especially successful, the
adagio lamentoso seems to me
anticlimactic after the vigorous allegro
molto vivace, which receives a
thunderous applause, the last
movement, the lamentoso, however
lovely, doesn’t rise to the heights of a
proper finale for this forerunner’s
contagious ebullience, sounds rather
like an encore, melodramatic and a bit
pretentious
or maybe I’m just getting cranky
sooner or later though, the conundrum
of adagio bookends will be resolved,
someone inevitably will do it, like
finding the square on the hypotenuse,
unearthing warped space, discovering
a way to recapture carbon dioxide and
make it work for us, as trees would do
if we let them, someone always exceeds,
miraculously, our expectations, watch
for it, dare I say, here
R ! chard
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