Anton Stepanovich Arensky has created one of the brightest pages in the history of Russian music of the 19th century. His operas, orchestral and chamber works, piano and solo vocal pieces have been staged in the best theaters and performed by famous artists.
The composer dedicated his romantic ballad The Wolves to the famous Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin, who, in turn, often included it in his concert programs. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, that mystical tale about werewolves performed by the great singer impressed the audiences profoundly.
The melodeclamatory Provençal romance The Minstrel is a tale of unhappy love between a court singer and the King’s daughter. The guitar accompaniment and expressive intonation emphasize the figurative structure of the work. The composer has dedicated his masterpiece to the soloist of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres Yelizaveta Andreyevna Lavrovskaya, whom Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky considered an outstanding representative of the Russian vocal school.
The Cup, a ballad for soloist, mixed chorus and orchestra, will take the audience back to knightly times and tell the story of a brave young man who has decided to take a bold step: to jump off a cliff and get the Tsar’s cup from the depths of the sea.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was at the height of his creative powers. It was at that time that his best mature works appeared, including the Violin Concerto in A minor.
Alexander Konstantinovich embarked on the opus in 1904, and on February 19, 1905, the premiere of the Concerto took place at the eighth symphonic meeting of the Russian Musical Society. The composer himself conducted the orchestra. The soloist was an outstanding violinist, violin professor at the St Petersburg Conservatory Leopold Auer. His performance was especially symbolic, because it was to him that the composer had dedicated his outstanding Concerto.
The critics’ opinions about the premiere divided. For some, the Concerto fell short of their expectations of another virtuoso, brilliant composition, because the work had been written in a soft and lyrical manner, which especially manifested itself in the broad expressive melodism of the main themes. Others admired the integrity of the form and the innovations the composer had brought in.
The work is composed in a form unusual for the concerto genre. There exist different interpretations of it: some talk about single movement, others describe it as consisting of two movements, still others find signs of either traditional three-movement or even four-movement structure!
In the musical canvas, two large sections are clearly visible, following each other without interruption: the Moderato, written in sonata form, and the Finale, a brilliant, lively rondo with a refrain in the spirit of a French dance song. The first major section includes an independent lyrical episode, which as if replaces the slow movement of the familiar three-movement cycle.
Despite the lyrical spirit of the work, the composer provides a fair opportunity for the soloist to demonstrate his virtuoso capabilities. They are especially manifested in the solo cadenza (the soloist performs alone, without orchestral accompaniment, and reveals his technical skill). This is a kind of “the composer’s word”, his philosophical statement.
In Glazunov’s Concerto, the soloist and the orchestra are not rivals, as is customary by the law of the genre (from the Latin Concertare, “competition”), but perform in close cooperation and harmoniously complement each other, drawing a joint pattern.
Besides supporting the soloist, the orchestra continues to develop the themes the composer has outlined, thus forming a light, transparent texture, rich in polyphonic elements. The miniature scherzo fugato of the first major section receives a special emphasis.
Combining the lyrical expressiveness of the music with the mastery of form and texture, the Violin Concerto in A minor had quickly entered the repertoire of many musicians and won recognition among the public. One of its best performers was David Fyodorovich Oistrakh, a Soviet violinist, violist, conductor, and teacher.
In 1888, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky returned to his homeland after a long concert tour abroad. In a pursuit of a retreat to relax and gain strength, the composer rented a house in the village of Frolovskoye with which, according to him, he was “completely in love.” It was among those picturesque hills that he began work on the Fifth Symphony in May of the same year.
The process required much effort. It had been 11 years since he composed his Fourth Symphony, and he was very much tired of touring. Also, at that time, the composer became somewhat skeptic of his abilities. “I often doubt myself and the question arises: is it time to stop, have I always strained my imagination too much, has the source dried up?”
Despite all those difficulties, on August 14, 1888 the Symphony was completely finished. The composer dedicated the work to Theodor Avé-Lallemant, a famous musician and public figure, founder and chief director of the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. Pyotr Ilyich had been quite charmed by that 80-year-old man during the concert tour. Theodor had not only organized his performances flawlessly, but had also attended all rehearsals, and expressed his admiration for the composer’s work.
In the Fifth Symphony, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky turns to the theme of “man and fate” once again. This theme already manifests itself in the Fourth Symphony, but now it has received a new interpretation. The four movements of the masterpiece are permeated by the “doom theme”, a gloomy, ominous and unyielding image. As the musical fabric develops, the theme changes and in the finale loses its harsh coloring. The final bars render a victorious, triumphant sound. This conclusion of the Symphony represents an open ending and everyone must solve the composer’s riddle: is the doom of fate defeated or is this its triumphant rejoicing?
The Symphony was premiered on November 5, 1888 in St Petersburg, at a concert of the Philharmonic Society. It was a great success with the public. The famous Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and public figure Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev considered the Fifth Symphony to be the best work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Alexandra Vershinina
