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Tchaikovsky Complete Symphonies Vladimir Jurowski Tchaikovsky Complete Symphonies Vladimir Jurowski Symphony No. 1 in G minor, But his troubles weren’t over yet. Rubinstein was highly critical of the completed score, Op. 13, ‘Winter Daydreams’ and virtually ordered Tchaikovsky to revise it. Even that didn’t please, and only the Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony is such an Scherzo was performed – unsuccessfully. endearing, vital, seductively atmospheric More alterations were made then, at last, work that one would imagine it must have in February 1868, the First Symphony been a joy to write. In fact the opposite is had its first full performance in Moscow. true: few, if any of his other works caused This time it was a huge success; but Tchaikovsky such protracted pain. He was Tchaikovsky’s self-doubt was not 26 when he began it, having freshly graduated appeased, and it wasn’t until 1874 that from the St Petersburg Conservatoire he at last allowed the further-revised score and walked straight into a job at the newly to be published. created Conservatoire in Moscow. At first things were looking encouraging. His Surprisingly, despite memories of this first orchestral performance (an Overture agonising slow birth, Tchaikovsky always in F major) had been a success, and maintained a special affection for his First his teacher, the pianist and composer Symphony. ‘For all its glaring deficiencies’, Anton Rubinstein, had urged him to write he wrote in 1883, ‘I have a soft spot for it. a symphony. But then came a crushing Although it is immature in many respects review of another work, and Tchaikovsky’s it is essentially better and richer in content confidence plummeted: ‘I spent the entire than many other more mature works.’ day wandering aimlessly about the town’, As so often, he was being harsh: the First he told a friend, ‘repeating to myself “I am Symphony may have its faults, but they sterile, I am a nonentity, nothing will ever are hardly ‘glaring’, and most of the time the come of me, I have no talent”.’ He soldiered freshness of the material fully compensates. on with the new symphony, but his The opening theme (flute and bassoon determination to keep working through above shimmering violins) is a lovely the nights (inevitably resulting in insomnia) inspiration, with an unmistakable Slavic led to a frightening breakdown. accent. From the first there is a strong sense of forward-gliding momentum, In the end, work seems to have saved like the easy movement of a sleigh across Tchaikovsky, and the Symphony was finished smooth snow. Tchaikovsky’s sharp, clear in piano score by the beginning of June 1867. orchestration registers impressions of cold 01 very effectively, while from time to time of Tchaikovsky’s state of mind at the warm string harmonies manage to convey time he wrote it?). But after all his labours, a sense of cosiness and security – this Tchaikovsky is surely entitled to a bit traveller is clearly well wrapped up and of over-the-top celebration. enjoying his ‘winter daydreams’. Programme note © Stephen Johnson The slow movement is still more effective. An eloquent theme for muted strings leads to a long oboe tune, with answering birdcalls Symphony No. 2 in C minor, on flute, unmistakably Russian in so many of its melodic twists and turns. The rest Op. 17, ‘Little Russian’ of the movement is essentially a meditation (daydreams again) on phrases from this Composers often blow hot and cold about tune, with occasional reminiscences of their own music, but few have been subject the flute’s birdsong, all done with much to such extreme mood- and valuation-swings more skill and imagination than Tchaikovsky’s as Tchaikovsky. The Second Symphony later judgement would have us believe. is a case in point. At first his pride in his The return of the opening string theme achievement was immense, clearly boosted at the end is also deftly timed. by the judgements of trusted friends like Nikolay Kondratyev. ‘This work of genius Next comes an agile, lightly dancing (as Kondratyev calls my symphony) is close to Scherzo, with wonderful use of woodwind completion … I think it’s my best composition colours (a very mature Tchaikovskian as regards perfection of form – a quality for touch). Hesitant cellos and basses suggest which I have not always been conspicuous.’ for a moment that the central trio section The positive feedback kept coming. When might be darker-hued, but what actually Tchaikovsky played the finale of the new emerges is a warm, suave waltz theme symphony to his Russian nationalist on violins and cellos. Then, after a sombre colleagues – the so-called ‘Mighty Handful’ slow introduction, the Finale soon sets – at the house of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov off at a more determined pace in the major in November 1872, he was thrilled by their key, with trombones, tuba, cymbals and reaction: ‘The whole company nearly tore bass drum adding their weight to the me to pieces with rapture – and Madame orchestra for the first time. The exuberance Rimsky-Korsakov begged me in tears can sound a little forced (a rare indication to let her arrange it for piano duet.’ 02 But as so often with Tchaikovsky, the His musicianship, he realised, was altogether picture changed. When the publisher more cosmopolitan than theirs. Could it be Bessel prevaricated about printing the that the original version of the Symphony score, Tchaikovsky began to see this as was simply tainted by association? a blessing in disguise. Seven years later he set to work on a major revision. The Whatever the cause, we must be grateful original first movement now made him that Tchaikovsky deemed the Symphony shudder with horror: ‘My God, how difficult worth saving. The very first notes make it and noisy and disconnected and obscure clear we are in for something special. From it was!’ Indeed the whole Symphony was an emphatic full-orchestral chord a hushed ‘unlucky’ – Tchaikovsky seems to have horn solo emerges, intoning a soulful theme forgotten that the first public performance – the first of three ideas in this work based in 1873 was so successful that the on Ukrainian folksongs. (In Tchaikovsky’s Symphony had to be repeated two months time the Ukraine was known as ‘Little later! Soon he was threatening to burn Russia’, hence the Symphony’s nickname.) the first version, and doing his best to This builds to a powerful and dramatic suppress the printed parts. Allegro vivo. But just when it seems that memories of that atmospheric slow Listening to the familiar revised version, introduction are forgotten, the horn cuts in the first-time listener may find Tchaikovsky’s again with its folk-inspired melody, its final radical change of heart baffling. Could the phrase echoed by a lugubrious ‘dying’ low original really be that bad? Granted the bassoon – a typically Tchaikovskian touch. work isn’t quite as ‘perfect’ formally as he originally thought. Certainly the finales Instead of the usual slow movement, of his later symphonies are more subtly Tchaikovsky brings contrast with a sweetly constructed. But the work is so generously innocent march movement, its outer tuneful, so imaginatively scored, and so full sections taken from his rejected opera of what is obviously mature Tchaikovsky Undine (one of those scores which, alas, that it’s hard to identify any cause for shame Tchaikovsky did manage to destroy). At on his part – however exaggerated. Perhaps its heart a solo clarinet introduces another the real problem is that by the time he came Ukrainian folk-based tune, with a deliciously to revise the Second Symphony, light accompaniment on two flutes. The Tchaikovsky had turned his back decisively following Scherzo raises the Symphony on the nationalism of the Mighty Handful. to new imaginative heights: the colours 03 scintillate, the rhythms dance with the darker minor mode for his big symphonic remarkable freedom and flexibility – from utterances; and even in this, the brightest of this movement alone you could probably his symphonies, he feels the need to temper guess that Tchaikovsky was also a great that brightness by setting the middle three ballet composer. The Finale is dominated movements, plus the first movement’s by the Symphony’s third Ukrainian slow introduction, in minor keys. And the folk-based tune (presented by the full five-movement structure is equally unique: orchestra in the brief slow introduction). the ‘extra’ movement is the Alla tedesca – As craftsmanship it may be a lot less refined a lilting symphonic waltz, whose declared than the Scherzo, but it can be tremendous ‘German’ (tedesca) style makes nonsense bracing fun in performance – conjuring up of the Symphony’s still-frequently used the smell of vodka, the twang of balalaikas nickname, ‘Polish’. That name has nothing and the creaking of leather boots. There is to do with Tchaikovsky: it seems to have one darker moment: rasping low woodwind, been invented by the conductor August bass brass and an ominous fortissimo Manns for one of his popular Crystal Palace stroke on a gong. But the exhilarating concerts. True, the Finale is largely based Presto coda soon dismisses such thoughts, on the rhythm of the ‘polonaise’ or ‘polacca’ and the Symphony ends in wild elation. – a dance strongly associated with Poland at the time, and much favoured by Tchaikovsky. Programme note © Stephen Johnson Otherwise it is hard to identify anything specific to that nation in the Third Symphony. Symphony No. 3 in D major, A possibly more relevant fact is that Tchaikovsky conceived the Symphony Op. 29, ‘Polish’ around the time he was working on his ballet Swan Lake. The balletic character of the In August 1875 Tchaikovsky wrote to the Alla tedesca is clear from the start, and while composer Sergey Taneyev that he had the central Andante elegiaco is more funereal ‘written a symphony.
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