Suite No.2, Op.17

Introduction: Alla marcia

Valse: Presto

Romance: Andantino

Tarantella: Presto

Of the three works Rachmaninov wrote specifically and exclusively for two pianos – all of them composed between 1891 and 1901 – the Second Suite is much the most accomplished. In Russian Rhapsody, a student work, he treated the two pianos as one very large instrument. The Suite No.1, Fantaisie-tableaux, Op.5 written two years later, is rather more sophisticated:    characteristically, one piano supplies a decorative accompaniment to the other, creating a super-Liszt effect which is irresistible but still not what writing for two pianos is about. This he achieved in Suite No.2, a masterly example of two-piano writing which he completed in 1901 and dedicated to his pianist friend Alexander Goldenweiser. It was first performed by the composer and Alexander Siloti in Moscow later in the same year.

The Second Suite is remarkable above all for the way the two pianos are fully integrated on equal terms in textures which remain consistent throughout each movement. The quick-march step in the Introduction and the running figuration in the Valse are there all the time, even in the more lyrical middle sections where they persist in the background to sustained melodic expression recalling (in both cases) the recently completed Second Piano Concerto. Both movements end quietly – the one marching gradually into the distance, the other whirling off the top end of the keyboard.

The Romance reverts to some extent to the manner of Suite No.1, the second movement La Nuit…    L’Amour in particular. But, even though the second piano has an elaborate decorative function, integrity is preserved by the continued presence, in an infinity of different colourings, of the eloquent six-note rising phrase at the beginning of the main theme – a melody very similar to that of the song Lilacs of the same period. The Tarantella adopts the C minor key and the manner of the first movement, except that in this case there is no time for lyrical reflection and the ending is anything but distant. Although Rachmaninov found the main theme of his Tarantella in a collection of Italian songs, it sounds about as Italian as Tchaikovsky’s Italian Caprice. As in the Valse, incidentally, it takes only a little imagination to hear hints of the Dies Irae theme that haunts so many of Rachmaninov’s later works.

Introduction: alla marcia

Valse: presto

Romance: andantino

Tarantella: presto

Of the three works Rachmaninov wrote specifically and exclusively for two pianos - a category which does not include the Symphonic Dances - the Second Suite is much the most accomplished. In Russian Rhapsody, a student work, he treated the two pianos as one very large instrument. The Suite No.1, Fantaisie-tableaux, Op.5, which was written two years later, is very much more sophisticated: characteristically, one piano supplies a decorative accompaniment to the other, creating (at least in the first two movements) a super-Liszt effect which is irresistible but still not what writing for two pianos is all about.

This he achieved in Suite No.2, which he completed in 1901. It is remarkable above all for the way the two pianos are fully integrated on equal terms in textures which remain consistent throughout each movement. The quick-march step in the Introduction and the running figuration in the Valse are there all the time, even in the more lyrical middle sections where they persist in the background to sustained melodic expression recalling (in both cases) the recently completed Second Piano Concerto.

The Romance reverts to some extent to the manner of La nuit,l’amour in Suite No.1 but, even though the second piano has an elaborate decorative function, integrity is preserved by the continued presence of the eloquent six-note rising phrase at the beginning of the main theme. The Tarantella adopts the C minor key and the manner of the first movement, except that in this case there is no time for lyrical reflection and the ending is anything but distant. Although Rachmaninov found the main theme of his Tarantella in a collection of Italian songs, it sounds about as Italian as Tchaikovsky’s Italian Caprice. It takes only a little hindsight to hear illusory hints of the Dies Irae.

Russian Rhapsody

Reaction to the Russian Rhapsody depends on how much one likes the sturdy four-bar tune with which it begins - unharmonised, with both pianos in bare octaves. In the course of six or seven minutes it is repeated literally dozens of times, often in a shape very similar to the original although with ever changing harmonies. There is no contrasting material but there is a cadenza featuring the first piano at an early stage and there is a central Andante section based on a variant so different from the original that some commentators have welcomed it as a new theme. The thematic basis of the virtuoso finale is unmistakable.

Symphonic Dances, Op.45

Non allegro

Andante con moto (tempo di valse)

Lento assai - allegro vivace

Although the two-piano score of the Symphonic Dances is dated August 1940, which is two months before the orchestral score was finished, the earlier version must be regarded as an alternative rather than as the original. Written specifically for Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in return perhaps for the Rachmaninov festival they had given in 1939, the Symphonic Dances could scarcely have been conceived as a two-piano work. It is interesting, however, that this, the last of all Rachmaninov’s works, has so much in common with Suite No.2, the last of his two-piano works written as long as forty years earlier. The first movement of both works is a march in C minor, the second a waltz and, although there is no equivalent in the Symphonic Dances to the Romance of Suite No.2, the last movement is another compulsive dance in compound metre.

The Non allegro of the Symphonic Dances is more varied in texture than the Alla marcia of the Second Suite. Rachmaninov is concerned, however, to preserve unity between the brisk outer sections and the central Lento, where a liquid ostinato derived from the main theme runs alongside the new molto espressivo in C sharp minor (famously introduced in the orchestral version by alto saxophone). Near the end of the movement, just as the key changes from C minor to C major, there is a clear allusion to a theme from Rachmaninov’s ill-fated First Symphony, presented cantabile on one piano under staccato arpeggios on the other. Rachmaninov introduced it at this point in what he no doubt knew would be his last major work partly for autobiographical reasons perhaps and partly also because of its melodic shape - which is not very different from that of his favourite Dies Irae theme.

Once alert to the Dies Irae, the ear is open to echoes of it, some of them very distant, at several points in the Symphonic Dances. It might even be contained in the eerie harmonies (on muted trumpets and horns in the orchestral version) which open and regularly recur in the second movement. Certainly, the harmonies are an important element in holding together a construction which, though clearly based on an attractively swaying melody in G minor, is not only flexible but positively elusive.

The first overt reference to the Dies Irae, if it is not in the slow introduction, is in the percussive main theme of the Allegro vivace. The identity of the energetically syncopated second theme becomes apparent later on, after a more reflective middle section (featuring the last of Rachmaninov’s yearning melodies) and a recapitulation of the Allegro vivace. The clue is the word Alliluya printed at the top of the page where the coda begins and associating the second subject with a melody from the Orthodox liturgy, Blessed by the Lord. In the same frame of mind, after an ending which could be in either D major or D minor, Rachmaninov wrote on the score, “I thank the, Lord”.

Rupert Avis