SYMPHONY NO.5, E MINOR, OPUS 64

Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

1. Adante; Allegro con anima 2. Adante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
3. Valse Allegro moderato 4. Andante maestoso-Allegro vivace

It is particularly interesting to learn that Tchaikovsky looked upon this symphony which the world now acknowledges as one of his greatest as proof that he was through as a composer. He felt that his creative urge had grown feeble. And when the Symphony was introduced in St. Peterburg, he felt that there was something repellent about it.

Such self-depreciation sounds strange to present-day concert-goers, to whom the Fifth is a favorite symphony, of moving grandeur and majesty. Tchaikovsky himself soon realized that he had been too harsh. After a subsequent performance of the symphony, he wrote, “I like it far better now.” The gloomy, mysterious opening theme.

Suggests the leader, deliberate tread of life. The opening Allegro, after experimenting in many moods, ends mournfully and wearily. The beauty of the Andante is twice broken in upon by the first sombre theme. The third movement he waltz is never really gay : there is always the suggestion of impending fate in it : while at times the scale passages for the strings give it an eerie, ghostly character. At the end of this also there comes the heavy, muffled tread of the veiled figure that is suggested by the opening theme. Finally the last movement shows us, as it were, the emotional transformation of this theme, evidently in harmony with a change in the part it now plays in the curious drama. It is in the major instead of in the minor : it is no longer a symbol of weariness and foreboding, but bold, vigorous, emphatic, self-confident. What may be the precise significance of the beautiful theme of the second movement that reappears in the finale it is impossible to say : but it is quite clear that the transmutation which the first subject of the allegro undergoes, just before the close of the symphony, is of the same psychological order as that of ‘fate’ motive a change from clouds to sunshine, from defeat to triumph.

The repetitious use of the fate motive has given this work the sobriquet of “Fate Symphony”.

RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI, OPUS 43 - RUBINSTEIN'S VERSION

I have loved this recording for over 40 years. I own the original vinyl LP. I was thrilled when this became available on CD. I was afraid that some of the richness and velvety tone would be lost in the transition to CD, but it sounds fine. (Almost as good as vinyl.) This is a superb rendition of the Rhapsody. Rubinstein's interpretation is romantic and masculine; the music lives and breathes. Rubinstein's version of de Falla's "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" is lighter, more elegant and exotic. There might be better versions of the de Falla piece out there, but for me, this version of the "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" has never been surpassed. And as I said, the sound on this CD is faithful to the original LP, and while not quite as full and nuanced as the original, it is still fine enough not to distract me when I listen to the CD. I highly recommend this CD.--R. Rubin Listen to samples

RACHMANINOV: CONCERTO NO.2/RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI

This is one of the finest performance and recording of these pieces available. Gary Graffman shows his brilliant talent in these interpretations of Rachmaninoff. Far too many think that speed is critical in performing specific passages when in fact patience is required. One may have the skill to play all the notes but lack the talent to perform the music. Graffman performs with nuance and subtlety as well as skill and decision in bringing the souls of these pieces to life. Highly recommended. (You'll throw your other recordings away after hearing this!)--Rob Smout

Samples to Listen

RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI, OPUS 43

Sergey Rachmaninov
(1873-1943)



The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, composed in 1934, is one of Rachmaninov’s most popular works. The clear shape of the theme, from Paganini’s vilolin Caprice in A minor, heip Rachmaninov to control procedures which elsewhere had often become rather ramblingly improvisatory. The result is a taut structure in which the variations on the theme can roughly be divided into three sections, as Geoffery Norris and other writers have pointed out variations 1-10 (for the most part quick); 11-18 (predominantly slow); and 19-24 (lively throughout). These sections coincide loosely with the three movements of a concerto. The basic outline of the theme in the first variation precedes the theme itself. Rachmaninov has perceived that it bears a resemblance to the Dies Irae, which dominates variations 7-10 and plays an important role later as well. The florid variation 11, with its cadenza-like passages, effects a modulation from the key hitherto largely employed. A minor to D minor for the next two variations, then to F major and, in variation 18 (the culmination of the middle section), to D flat major for one of the most delectably lyrical of all Rachmaninov’s melodies, ingeniously based on a free inversion of Paganini’s theme. From variation 19 (again in A minor) the rhythmic impetus and tempo gradually increase until the final, twenty-fourth variation, in which the Dies Irae is portentously restated in the course of a dramatic peroration, capped by a whimsically soft snippet of the theme.

It is because this series of variations is constructed with such exquisite care, and encapsulates such a wide variety of moods and of moods and of melodies cleverly derived from Paganini’s original, that it is generally considered to be Rachmaninov’s greatest concerted work. And it is no mean feat to have matched the achievement of earlier composers who wrote variations on the same theme, most notably Brahms.

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet

This is without doubt one of the best CDs I own, and surely the best contemporary one. The orchestra performs so cleanly and magically that you don't even realize that there are instruments playing the melodies, just a story being told. (which is the point, you're not listening to music, but rather a story) I think Prokofiev captured the spirit of the play really, really well; themes such as the shrill highs and unsettling lows of Tybalt Recognizes Romeo really give me the chills and develop the characters. Other highlights include the Dance of the Knights, Romeo Resolves to Avenge Mercutio (the buildup after the violent repeating percussion halfway through the track is enchantingly Prokofiev-esque--the themes building upon one another, really making the listener feel for him/herself the grief and anger), and the pretty but faintly creepy and forboding Morning Serenade. The Epilogue, luckily, tops even these, and you really feel Romeo's despair as he dances with lifeless Juliet. This is one of those CDs that I thought mediocre upon first listening, but upon second and third I fell in love. Beautiful beyond words. Now I want to see the ballet! --Tyler Kerce "russophile" Listen to samples

Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet

LSO Live will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2010 and the label's first release of the year features Prokofiev s spectacular score for the ballet Romeo & Juliet conducted by Valery Gergiev. Gergiev is a tireless champion of Prokofiev's music. In 2004 he conducted a complete cycle of the composer's symphonies with the LSO in London. The performances which were recorded by LSO Live and released by Philips collected a Gramophone Award. Shortly afterward, Gergiev became Principal Conductor of the orchestra and spent much of 2008 and 2009 touring Prokofiev's symphonies with the LSO in Europe, Japan and the USA.

Romeo and Juliet (Orchestral Suites) Opus 64

Sergey Prokofiev (1891 - 1953)

Although a period of almost twenty years separates this compositions. Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and his ballet Romeo and Juliet are strikingly close in musical language. In both, the composer successfully combines the formal mannerisms and especially the dance gestures of an earlier age with the most characteristic features of his own style – a wealth of melodic invention, strong rhythmic drive, vivid contrasts in pace and orchestration and above all, a sure sense of the dramatic. Not only is much of the music of the ballet reminiscent of the earlier work (the music of the lovers’ farewell in Act III of the Symphony’s slow movement, for example), but Prokofiev further acknowledged their musical ties by quotation: the Gavotte from the Classical Symphony reappears, in an extended and elaborated form, to accompany the guests’ departure from the Capulets’ ball. The Symphony, finished in September 1917, was almost the last work written before Prokofiev left his homeland for the United States in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Romeo and Juliet was one of the first works he composed on his return; most of the score was sketched out in the summer of 1935 at the rest-home of the Boishoi Theatre near Tarusa on the river Oka, south-west of Moscow. From its first performance in Revolutionary Petrograd on 21 April 1918, the Symphony immediately became the popular “classic” the composer hoped it might. The ballet, however, had its first performance outside Russia, in Brno, on 30 December 1938; it was only after four years of wrangling, which involved the revision of, first the plot, then the music, through the incorporation of several entirely new dance-numbers and the reinforcement of much of the original orchestration, that it was presented in Leningrad, and thereafter became an international success. It was largely because the ballet at first failed to reach the stage that Prokofiev arranged excerpts for concert performance. He extracted no less than three orchestral suites from the scene two, each of seven movements, in 1936, and third of six movements (given the separate opus number 101) in 1946-along with a set of ten piano pieces opus 75 in 1937. The numbers were selected on purely musical considerations; each of the suites presents a succession of contrasts between dance and character sketches, intimate genre pieces.

Sir George Solti’s compilation of numbers from the ballet has quite a different and arguably more interesting basis. For the most part it traces the intimate love story at the heart of Shakespeare’s and Prokofiev’s tragedy, largely avoiding direct reference to the Montague/Capulet feud or the subsidiary characters in the drama. It effectively retains the continuity of the most moving sections of the ballet score the opening street scene in which the character of Romeo is introduced, the youthful beauty and innocence of Juliet in the midst of the ball, the musically ecstatic balcony scene, the rhythmically terse duels between Mercutio and Tybalt, Tybalt and Romeo, and Juliet’s death.