Kirov Orchestra of St. Petersburg
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UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY KIROV ORCHESTRA OF ST. PETERSBURG Valery Gergiev, Conductor Vladimir Feltsman, Pianist Sunday Afternoon, November 1, 1992, at 4:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan PROGRAM Excerpts from Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66* ........... Tchaikovsky Introduction: La fee de lilias Panorama: Andantino Valse: Allegro - tempo di valse Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 .... ... Tchaikovsky Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso - Allegro con spirito Andantino simplice - Prestissimo - Tempo I Allegro con fuoco Vladimir Feltsman, Pianist INTERMISSION Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27* ........... Rachmaninoff Largo - Allegro moderate Allegro molto - meno mosso Adagio Allegro vivace 'This repertoire was premiered by the Kirov Orchestra. The Kirov Orchestra records on the Philips Classics label. Vladimir Feltsman may be heard on the Musicmasters and CBS Masterworks labels. Mr. Feltsman plays a Steinway piano. The Kirov Orchestra appears by arrangement with Columbia Artists Management Inc. The University Musical Society extends special thanks to Mr. Joe Laibman, composer and co-owner of L & S Music, for this afternoon's Philips Pre-concert Presentation. 11th Concert of the 114th Season 114th Choral Union Series PROGRAM NOTES Excerpts from Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 creative geniuses were to collaborate again Pyotr llyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) when they worked on the balletic realiza tion of Alexander Dumas fils version of INo ballet score has made E.T.A. Hoffmann's story, The Nutcracker quite the same impact as those of Tchai and the King of the Mice. kovsky. His full-length ballets - Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty was first performed on Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker are January 3, 1890, at the Maryinsky Theater arguably the three most popular ballets in in St. Petersburg, with the Italian conduc the world and essential repertoire for any tor Riccardo Drigo leading the Kirov Or large ballet company. Luscious melodies, chestra. The production aroused masterly orchestration, and the way the unprecedented enthusiasm, particularly music so brilliantly fits the action have among theater people and Russian youth, certainly contributed to their universal thus renewing interest in ballet and its popularity. music as forms of artistic expression. When Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake was As on many other occasions, however, first produced in 1877, the work was poorly the critics were not impressed with the staged and ineptly danced and choreo music, which was described as too "serious graphed. This, in combination with the and heavy." One critic, referring to prevailing opinion that ballet was merely a Aurora's christening, pronounced: "judging dismissable amusement for "starched dan by the music, one might think its intention dies and youthful old men," and the fact was to describe Macbeth and his witches." that the music was severely cut, contrib Early critics notwithstanding, Skeping uted to the work passing without real Beauty has become a classic, with music notice. In 1888, however, the second act that transports listeners into the magical was produced in Prague during the kingdom of fairy tales. Thanks to composer's visit there. Its warm reception Tchaikovsky's uncanny feeling for dance gave Tchaikovsky "a moment of absolute rhythms, melodic gift, orchestral wizardry, happiness," as he wrote in his diary. and sense of compositional organization, he The belated success of Swan Lake in elevated ballet music to its highest expres fluenced the composer to accept a commis sion. sion from Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg, to write another ballet. After several scenarios Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat were discussed, it was decided to create a minor, Op. 23 work based on the famous fairy tale La belle Pyotr llyich Tchaikovsky au bois dormant by Charles Perrault (1628- 1703). The scenario closely followed the In the winter of 1874, Tchai original story, in which the beautiful Prin kovsky presented his newly written First cess Aurora is cursed by an evil witch to Piano Concerto one of the best-loved in sleep for one hundred years only to awaken the repertoire today - to his much admired upon receiving a kiss from a daring and and entrusted senior colleague at the Mos handsome prince. The choreography was cow Conservatory, Nikolay Rubinstein, for entrusted to the theater's chief ballet-mas an opinion on the work. Tchaikovsky suf ter, Marius Petipa, an immensely resource fered one of the biggest disappointments of ful and imaginative artist who had yet to his career when, on Christmas Eve, Rubiiin- make his mark in the history of ballet. stein - who had been so supportive of the Fascinated by the symbolic themes of death composer in the past-rejected the concerto and rebirth, good vs. evil, and light vs. with a torrent of scathing criticism, declar darkness in the story, Petipa created a ing the work ill-composed and unplayable. detailed libretto. Tchaikovsky found it "po This unexpected reaction left the composer etic [and] so adaptable to music." The two totally devastated, and he sank into a severe state of depression. Tchaikovsky soloist plays a short cadenza that leads into then sent his concerto to Hans von Biilow, the main love theme once again to con who found it "original, noble and power clude the movement. ful." On October 25, 1875, Bulow pre The last movement, Allegro con fuoco, sented the work in Boston with great is a rondo with elements of sonata form. success. After this, Rubinstein reconsid After a few introductory measures from the ered his position, recognizing the concerto orchestra, the piano presents the main for the masterpiece it is, and added it to his recurring theme - an assertive mazurka-like repertoire, playing it throughout Russia. theme derived from another Ukranian The first movement begins with a folksong. Two other subjects come into lengthy introduction marked Allegro non play here: one of great significance bearing troppo e molto maestoso. At the outset, the a syncopated dance rhythm and another, horns present a four-note descending motif, of a subsidiary nature, with a gentler char punctuated by sharp chords from the rest acter. The two principal themes appear in of the orchestra. The piano then enters a different context in each recurrence. At with a long series of chords, as the violins the coda, now in the major key, the play an impassioned theme based on the subsidiary theme finally realizes its full opening motif. Eventually, the first move import. Then, with minimal orchestral in ment proper, Allegro con spirito, arrives as tervention, the piano rushes to the work's the piano introduces the main theme with exhilarating conclusion in a flurry of virtu minimal support from the orchestra. Rubin oso playing. stein had found this an unseemly theme for a piano concerto: it is derived from a Ukranian folksong commonly sung by blind Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 beggars. The somewhat more relaxed and Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) stately second theme begins with an as cending scalar motif and ends with de /although Rachmaninoff was scending leaps. Both themes are subjected always in great demand as a pianist and to a brilliant double exposition, with the conductor, he usually found performance exchange of virtuoso and expressive ele requests to distract him from his "true ments and argumentative tension between calling" - composition. Trying to avoid soloist and orchestra. The soloist has occa performance opportunities, and fleeing sion to shine in many ornate and rhapsodic from political unrest, Rachmaninoff moved passages as well as several demanding ca from Moscow to the German city of Dres denzas. den in 1906 for two years. This was to be The contrasting second movement, one of the composer's most prolific compo Andantino simplice, takes the form of a sitional periods, during which he wrote scherzo, but in reverse. Instead of the some of his most freely imaginative works, normal fast-slower-fast pattern, a soulful including the First Piano Sonata, the Fif episode surrounds a jaunty middle section. teen Songs (Op. 26), the Third Piano It begins with a tender love theme played Concerto, the symphonic poem The Isle of by a solo flute against pizzicato strings, and the Dead, and his Second Symphony. then taken over by the piano. After a The Dresden period helped restore contrasting phrase is heard, the oboe once Rachmaninoff's confidence. For almost a again takes the main melody. Then the decade after the disastrous failure of his First piano embarks on a frolicsome scherzando Symphony, the composer had been in the episode marked Prestissimo. Soon the violas grip of a depressive neurotic crisis that and cellos join in with their own melody -- undermined his creative endeavors. The the French song "II faut s'amuser, danser et condition was somewhat alleviated by the rire" ("One must have fun, dance, and composition of the Second Piano Concerto laugh"), which was a favorite of Desiree in 1901. Yet the concerto was only written Artot, to whom the composer was briefly after the composer had undergone exten engaged. After an ingenious reference to sive hypnotic treatment administered by a the first movement's second theme, the neurologist, Dr. Nikolai Dahl (to whom the work is dedicated). By the time the follow. The middle trio section consists of Second Symphony was completed, a chattering fugato episode, in which the Rachmaninoff had finally recovered from second motif from the introduction makes his malaise; the outpouring of inspired a sudden appearance. Towards the end the melodies certainly attest to this fact. first motif is liturgically intoned by the In the slow introduction, marked brass. Largo, Rachmaninoff presents three con With the Aoagio comes one of trasting motifs that are heard throughout Rachmaninoff's most inspired melodies. the work. The first and main motif is The movement opens with an introductory hauntingly sung by melancholic cellos and romantic theme in the violins, alluding to basses; the second consists of a quasi-litur the first movement.