Suite: The Firebird (1945)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Suite: The Firebird (1945)

Introduction - Prelude and Dance of the Firebird -

Pantomime 1 -

Pas de deux: Firebird and Ivan Tsarevich -

Pantomime II -

Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses -

Pantomime III -

Rondo (Khorovod) -

Infernal Dance -

Lullaby (Firebird) -

Final Hymn

Stravinsky once asked Debussy for his honest opinion of The Firebird. Although he was not flattered by the reply - “Well, you had to begin somehow, didn’t you?”- he too had a critical attitude towards the work. Even in 1909, when he first applied himself to it, he found the subject unattractive. But a commission from Sergei Diaghilev and the prospect of a glamorous first performance at the Paris Opéra amounted to an offer that a young composer unknown outside Russia could scarcely refuse. So, although the ballet established his international reputation on its first performance in 1910, and although the orchestral suite he drew from it in 1911 quickly spread through the concert halls of Europe, his Firebird music was a long-term source of embarrassment. In 1919, in a spirit of post-war economy, he reduced the original “wastefully large” instrumentation of the ballet and compiled a second suite from the new score. In 1945, unhappy with form of the 1919 suite, he put together a third and longer suite. Such “direct musical criticisms,” he said, “are stronger than words.”

He was always happy with the Introduction, however - at least from a structural point of view, since its prominent tritones link it with those later scenes where there is a strong supernatural element. Here, on muted lower strings, they are magically evocative of the atmosphere of King Kaschei’s enchanted garden, where the Firebird comes to feed on golden fruits growing on silver trees. The next section is a brilliantly detailed study in orchestral colour with no real theme, apart from the Firebird’s characteristic tritones, but with the sound to match the iridescence of her plumage and the rhythms to suggest her erratic flight.

In both the 1911 and 1945 suites the next two major items are the Pas de Deux and the Scherzo - which in the latter case, so as to preserve the unbroken continuity of the construction, are connected to each other and to the movements before and after them by three very short Pantomime (or mime) sections. In the Pas de Deux the Firebird, caught in Kaschei’s garden by Prince Ivan, pleads with him to let her go. The Scherzo is a playful dance for thirteen princesses held in thrall by the evil King Kashchei, who himself puts in a dramatic appearance in the third of the Pantomime sections.

The last four movements are much the same as those of the 1919 suite. A particularly attractive example of the diatonic melody which distinguishes the human from the magical element in the Firebird score, the Rondo (or Khorovod) of the Princesses is based on two Russian folk songs. The Infernal Dance of King Kaschei is a violent contrast, not only because of the explosive dynamics and the ferocious rhythmic syncopations but also because of the malevolent non-diatonic intervals in the melodic line. The same intervals are used, but this time with a disarmingly gentle effect, in the Berceuse, where the Firebird charms King Kaschei and his followers to sleep. Ivan’s final triumph over Kaschei must naturally, be a celebration of diatonic melody. Once again Russian folk song gave Stravinsky just what he wanted - a broadly expressive melody called By the Gate, which thrives under the weight of the orchestral panoply he hangs on it and flourishes in whatever rhythm he applies to it.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor, Op.18

Moderato

Adagio sostenuto

Allegro scherzando

The score of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto in C minor carries a discreet dedication “à Monsieur N. Dahl” - without whom, it might honestly have been added, the work would not have been written. Devastated by the disastrous first performance of his First Symphony in St Petersburg in 1897, the young composer had suffered a breakdown so severe that it could have ended his creative career. It was only through understanding treatment by a specialist in hypnosis, Nikolay Dahl - after two visits to Tolstoy had made matters actually worse - that he was able to start composing again. The first thing he wrote as he recovered was the Piano Concerto in C minor. The second and third movements were encouragingly tried out in December 1900 and the complete work was first performed in Moscow eleven months later.

Although Rachmaninov clearly wasn’t ready to perform the first movement when the other two were tried out by themselves, he must have had a very precise idea of what the opening Moderato would be about. Few concertos have such a detailed network of thematic cross-references running between the first movement and the last; still fewer are so effectively designed to heighten the profile and intensify the emotional impact of their ultimate climax. While there is more than enough melodic interest and keyboard virtuosity to occupy the attention in the first two movements, what the work is aiming for is the very loud and very grand last appearance of the big tune of the finale.

The work begins with the famous series of bell-like chords from the soloist and the main theme of the Moderato passionately presented by unison strings over flowing arpeggios on the piano. The rather more lyrical second subject is introduced by the piano alone - but not before the suddenly exposed violas offer a short but expressive rising and falling phrase which, though it has little meaning at this point, is a actually a clear anticipation of the big tune of the last movement. Together with an increasingly prominent percussive motif of something like the same melodic shape, that phrase is firmly integrated into the rest of the movement.

The Adagio sostenuto is in a world of its own - once, that is, the opening sequence of chords has moved from C minor to an area quite remote from the issues of the first movement. Over gentle piano arpeggios a solo flute introduces the first part of the main theme and a clarinet adds an even more expressive extension. Although it is the flute’s material which has a phrase in common with big tune of the last movement, the soloist is more interested in what the clarinet has to say, developing it at some length in a dramatic approach to a cadenza and then a reprise of the opening section.

The orchestral introduction to the last movement both echoes the percussive motif from the Moderato and anticipates the theme duly taken up by the soloist as the C minor first subject. But the event we are waiting for, because of the preparations made earlier in the work, is the introduction on oboe and violas of the deeply nostalgic second subject. Although it is repeated by the piano, Rachmaninov wisely doesn’t make too much of it at this stage. It is only towards the end of the movement that, after a short piano cadenza, the melody is allowed to fulfil its emotional potential in full-orchestral colours, the soloist adding a brilliantly percussive counterpoint derived from the other main theme. A lively coda confirms that the decision in favour of C major is final.

Witold Lutoslawski (1913 - 199?)

Concerto for Orchestra

Intrada: allegro maestoso

Capriccio notturno e arioso: vivace

Passacaglia , toccata e corale: andante con moto - allegro giusto -

poco più tranquillo

Widely regarded at the time of his death as one of the most significant creative figures of his generation and as the greatest Polish composer since Szymanowski - or since Chopin even - Witold Lutoslawski had a hard time until he was well into his forties. His career was interrupted by war service and, during the German occupation of Poland, by strenuous Nazi efforts to suppress Polish musical life. Then for a period of six years or so under the Communist regime, his musical principles came into direct conflict with the official aesthetic of “socialist realism.” The Nazis he resisted by playing nightly for years on end in cafés in Warsaw, often in piano duets with Andrzej Panufnik - which was the stimulus for his Paganini Variations of 1941. The Communists, who banned his First Symphony as “formalist” in 1949, he resisted in a more subtle way.

The Concerto for Orchestra, which was first performed in Warsaw in 1954, was the result of a commission from Witold Rowicki who wanted a new score to show off the ability of the recently formed Warsaw Philharmonic. It took the composer as long as four years to complete it largely because of the official requirement that it should be based on folk music and the consequent problem of converting that material to his own, personal use. In the course of time, and inspired to some extent by Bartók’s example, he developed a very satisfactory compromise. While the main themes of the Concerto for Orchestra are based on folksong, the way in which Lutoslawski uses them and interrelates them is not dissimilar from that of a serialist composer. Moreover, while not denying the work the illusion of a tonal centre, he allows his harmonic imagination much scope in the colouring of the music.

The repeated F sharps at the start of the Intrada provide a kind of tonal stability. Against that regularity, Lutoslawski projects his aggressivo main theme in a variety of keys as it works its way climactically from cellos to upper strings to woodwind in an ever denser texture. The second theme, quietly introduced by the horns, while actually based on another Polish folksong, is clearly related to the first. Similarly, the clashing of fifths and sixths heard next in the strings and then in the brass are derived from the main theme. The rest of the Intrada enlarges on these three episodes, the main theme finally returning in an extended almost pastoral treatment in the woodwind against sustained F sharp harmonies in the strings.

The Capriccio notturno section of the second movement is a delicately scored scherzo with lightly pattering upper strings, woodwind, and side drum. Several melodic fragments are tossed around but the most important is a legato version for high solo violin of the main theme of the Intrada. The middle section, the Arioso, contains some contrastingly powerful brass writing and develops a theme soon recognisable, by its falling fifth, as yet another relation of the Intrada. At the end of its second appearance the Capriccio notturno interestingly features tuba, bass clarinet, divisi double basses, and five different drums in a mysterious series of rumblings.

The last movement is longer than the other two put together and bears the stress of the whole construction. The sturdy theme of the Passacaglia, which is not unrelated to that of the Intrada, appears very quietly on pizzicato basses supported by the harp. As it moves solemnly forward it inspires a variety of virtuoso responses from the orchestra - a melodic improvisation on cor anglais, expressive recitatives and rhythmic stirrings in the strings. The Toccata is like a more substantial version of the Capriccio Notturno but with the capricious element based this time on the Passacaglia and the legato element based on the horn theme from the Intrada. Not surprisingly by now, both the main theme of the Corale, quietly introduced on oboes and clarinets, and its counterpoint on the flute refer back to the Intrada. After a return of the Toccata, the last part of the movement incorporates a final statement of the Corale on the brass, a rapid coda, and a unison F sharp to sustain the tonal illusion to the very end.

Gerald Larner©