Dresden Philharmonic: Online Concert Programme | Thu 18 April 2024

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881): Khovanshchina: Prelude – Dawn on the Moscow River

Mussorgsky started work on Khovanshchina in 1872, guided by the critic and writer Vladimir Stasov who played such a crucial role in encouraging Russian composers to develop a national style in tune with local traditions and history. Mussorgsky continued to be plagued by self-doubt and also distracted by other compositions over the next nine years and consequently the work was left incomplete by the time of his death in 1881.

Naturally enough, Rimsky-Korsakov was first on hand to produce a performing edition, although understandably stamping his own style on the orchestration. Other composers have also been involved with this process: in 1913 Diaghilev asked Stravinsky and Ravel to re-orchestrate the work; in the 1950s Shostakovich produced yet another orchestration of Khovanshchina for a Soviet film version of the opera. Shostakovich was keen to be as faithful as possible to the original and this version forms the basis for Claudio Abbado’s classic 1989 recording of the ‘completed’ opera.

Mussorgsky spoke of the Prelude having been prepared in a letter from August 1873 and it beautifully depicts dawn over the Moscow river; the sound of the church bells later toll in the background, completing a scene of calm and quiet before the drama about to unfold. The subsequent complexities of the plot and the various combatants need not concern us here.

© Timothy Dowling

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Violin Concerto in E minor

1. Allegro molto appassionato
2. Andante
3. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace

Like so many violin concertos after Beethoven, Mendelssohn’s Concerto was the result of a close friendship with a great violinist, his friend from childhood, Ferdinand David (1810-1873). Both were born in Hamburg, both were child prodigies and their friendship blossomed in the 1820s. When Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1836 it was only natural that he would seek David as his concert-master, a position he held until his sudden death whilst on a Swiss mountain holiday with his children.

David had been a pupil of Louis Spohr (1784-1859) who had composed eighteen violin concertos, his first concerto in 1802 four years before Beethoven’s towering masterpiece; Spohr managed to remain on good terms with Beethoven who was happy to encourage his younger protégé. Spohr tried to limit the virtuoso element in his violin concertos and he effectively bridged the gap between the classical and romantic eras – Spohr’s Eighth Concerto is well worth exploring if you are interested in the transition from classicism to romanticism.

Soon after his appointment in Leipzig, David asked Mendelssohn for a violin concerto, the request being first documented in letters from 1838. Somewhat surprisingly it took six years for Mendelssohn to complete the commission, most of the composing being completed in 1844. Mendelssohn frequently asked for David’s advice on violin technique and so David may have played a pivotal role in the composition process, most probably in the written-out solo cadenza in the middle of the first movement. Despite its long gestation, the work appears to be remarkably spontaneous and gives the impression of having been conceived in a single stroke.

Other than the addition of a second flute, the orchestration is identical to Beethoven’s Concerto. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto includes three notable innovations, the first right at the beginning, as the solo violin launches the main theme of the opening movement, singing continuously in its highest register for a considerable period of time. There is no hiding place here for the soloist whose technique is exposed in music pulsating with life and energy. The pace slows naturally for the introduction of the secondary material in the relative major key of G, with the soloist holding a low G for some eight bars, providing a blessed moment of time suspended before the exposition closes with dramatic orchestral trills.

The development section then leads to Mendelssohn’s second innovation as the solo cadenza (not improvised) occurs here rather than at the end of the movement; indeed the cadenza continues into the orchestra-led recapitulation. The speed increases steadily as we rush headlong (truly appassionata) towards the apparent close – but here is Mendelssohn’s third innovation, as the bassoon holds its final note, linking directly into the Andante.

The bassoon, together with flute, violas, violins and cellos, gently transform the tonality into an innocent C major for a glorious song without words. The song has a lilting 6/8 rhythm and Mendelssohn adopts a simple ABA structure, the short central ‘B’ section being in a more agitated key of A minor. Whilst the movement closes in its home key of C major, there is a clear instruction again that there should be no gap – Mendelssohn apparently disapproved of applause between movements.

The soloist and orchestral strings muse briefly, in a gentle question and answer passage, before two fanfares wake us from our reveries. And so begins the irrepressible dance that will carry us to the end, with music that resurrects the elves that featured so delightfully in the 17-year-old Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream overture.

Many have commented on the ever-fresh innocence of this Concerto. There is an account by Oliver Sacks in his book Musicophilia – Tales of Music and the Brain how Mendelssohn’s Concerto helped him to walk again after a climbing accident in 1974:

‘I had been given a cassette of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor – this was the only music I had, and I had been playing it for two weeks almost nonstop. Now suddenly, as I was standing, the concerto started to play itself with intense vividness in my mind. In this moment, the natural rhythm and melody of walking came back to me, and along with this, the feeling of my leg as alive, as part of me once again. I suddenly “remembered” how to walk.’

After the Second World War, Yehudi Menuhin played the Mendelssohn on tours of war-ravaged Germany. He recounted how moved he was when people spoke to him after the concerts, thanking him for bringing Mendelssohn back home following the dark days of the Nazi regime when Mendelssohn’s music had been banned. Most significantly, it was one of the first works that he played (and recorded) with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler following Furtwängler being cleared of charges at the de-Nazification trials in 1947: Mendelssohn’s Concerto was most appropriately chosen as a symbol of reconciliation.

Mendelssohn’s Concerto was enthusiastically received at its premiere on 13^th March 1845 and was rescheduled for the following season in October 1845. Interestingly, a few weeks later, Clara Schumann was unwell and so unable to premiere her husband’s Piano Concerto on 10^th November; Schumann turned to Mendelssohn to ask that his Violin Concerto be substituted instead. Ferdinand David was not available on that particular date and so he suggested that the 14-year-old Joseph Joachim play instead, thus launching his illustrious career.

The pure joy of Mendelssohn’s ever-fresh Concerto was not lost on later generations and, in particular, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius clearly appreciated the structural ideas that Mendelssohn introduced so spontaneously.

© Timothy Dowling

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathétique’

1. Adagio – Allegro non troppo
2. Allegro con grazia
3. Allegro molto vivace
4. Finale: Adagio lamentoso

The circumstances of Tchaikovsky’s death just weeks after the premiere of his final Symphony has inevitably led to various theories regarding the composition itself, the cause of his death and also whether the two are linked. Much of this is speculation that would not be considered admissible at a coroner’s court and does little (if anything) to affect our appreciation of his final masterpiece. And so it is best to concentrate on the work itself and Tchaikovsky’s own words about its genesis and possible programme.

Tchaikovsky remained very ambivalent about programme music and often avowed how he despised the form, preferring to let the music speak for itself on its own terms. However, he continued to produce programme music throughout his career and his Romeo and Juliet Overture must rank as one of the greatest masterpieces of the form. In 1877 he wrote a very detailed description of the programme of his Fourth Symphony in a letter to its dedicatee Nadezhda von Meck. This was clearly a description written after the event and Tchaikovsky immediately had misgivings about committing himself to paper in these terms. And yet despite these misgivings a rough programme outline was found amongst the sketches for the first movement of the Fifth Symphony in 1888. Similarly, five years later in 1893 he wrote to his brother Modest about his new plans for a programme symphony:

‘At the time of my journey I had an idea for another symphony, this time with a programme, but a programme of a kind that will remain an enigma to all – let them guess, but the symphony will just be called Programme Symphony (No.6); This progamme is permeated with subjective feeling, and quite often on my journey, composing it in my mind, I wept copiously. When I reached home, I settled down to the sketches, and the work went with such ardour and at such speed that in less than four days I had completely finished the first movement and clearly outlined the remaining movements in my head. Half the third movement is already done. Formally there will be much that is new in this symphony, and incidentally the Finale will not be a loud Allegro but, on the contrary, a very slow-moving Adagio. You cannot imagine what bliss I feel in the conviction that my time is not yet over and that work is still possible. Of course I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I can tell you in all sincerity that I consider this symphony the best thing I have ever done. In any case, it is the most deeply felt. And I love it as I have never loved any of my compositions.’

One striking feature in this letter is Tchaikovsky’s positive frame of mind, despite the proposed content of the suggested programme on which he was working at the time. There is no suggestion here that he was writing a musical suicide letter as appears to be the case in some of the conspiracy theories regarding the Pathétique.

The posthumous publication title for the Symphony was suggested by Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest. ‘Патетическая’ (‘Pateticheskaya Simfoniya’) or Pathétique Symphony does not translate easily into contemporary English; the Greek origin of the word would be closer with its suggestion of ‘passion’ or ‘suffering’ and perhaps The Passionate would thus be a more apt translation, although its subtitle is now ingrained in our consciousness and so is unlikely to change.

Tchaikovsky’s programme for the Pathétique remained unspoken in words although it is likely that he may have transferred some of his ideas from a proposed E flat major symphony that he wrote about in 1892: ‘the ultimate essence of the symphony is Life: First part – all impulsive passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short (the Finale death – result of collapse). Second part love: third disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short).’

This is clearly not the programme for the Pathétique, but the struggle between Life and Death is the common feature and the most daring part of the plan was the suggested ending as the proposed symphony dies away quietly: this then proved to be the Pathétique’s most radical dramatic stroke. The battle with Fate had dominated Tchaikovsky’s previous two Symphonies; he managed to achieve a positive victory in the Finales of these two works, but with mixed results as shown in his ambivalence about their success. The radical departure from the triumphant Finale remains the Pathétique’s defining character.

The Pathétique is thus a work about life and death and it marks death’s ultimate victory with its Adagio lamentoso, although this does not necessarily mean the composer’s imminent death. If so, Mahler would have had at least nine lives: each of his symphonies contains a funeral march and yet he survived all his symphonies until the Tenth….

As was customary with Tchaikovsky the first movement is the most substantial part of the Symphony and contains its essential drama. In a sense, we start with its ending as pianissimo cellos and basses steal in quietly. This provides the background for the four-note repeated theme introduced by solo bassoon, a brief fragmented theme that will then form the essential germ for the ensuing Allegro non troppo. The brief motivic quality of this theme represents a new development for Tchaikovsky who had previously relied on his lyrical gift for symphonic composition. However, this nervous, darting music does provide a strong contrast for the lamenting long-limbed theme soon introduced by muted strings playing teneramente, molto cantabile, con espansione. This is one of Tchaikovsky’s most memorable themes and he repeats it unchanged apart from instrumentation and accompaniment, firstly on full orchestra and then on solo clarinet, dying away to an extreme pppppp.

We are shocked out of our reverie by the fortissimo start of the development section, mainly featuring the four-note theme that set the work in motion. Death stalks the first movement as chant from the Russian Orthodox Requiem makes a quiet appearance on brass in the development section (bars 201ff), the unsung words being ‘With thy saints, O Christ, give peace to the soul of thy servant.’

This whole middle section is Tchaikovsky’s greatest symphonic development and builds up to a tremendous climax over a long, sustained dominant pedal. This heralds the return of the tender second subject theme now in the home key of B in major mode. Quiet chant on brass brings this dramatic movement to a peaceful conclusion. We are reminded of the story that the musicologist Stephen Johnson told regarding the Russian’s love affair with the minor mode:
Q: Why are so many Russian symphonies and concertos in the minor mode?
A: Because they reserved the major mode for their saddest moments.

In his Fifth Symphony Tchaikovsky introduced a graceful waltz in order to lower the emotional tension created by the first two movements. After all the life/death drama that we have traversed Tchaikovsky here also turns to a waltz-like theme. But it is now a broken waltz, in a halting 5/4 rhythm that is maintained throughout, even in the central ‘trio’ section with its falling, mournful (flebile) theme over its endless pulse on timpani.

Likewise Tchaikovsky was a skilled creator of the triumphant march and uses this as the basis for his third movement, but this ‘march’ has a strange hollowness to it. Mendelssohnian grace and lightness set us on our way as strings and woodwind skip around the broken fragments of the gathering march. The march theme is only stated in full after several minutes but the movement then builds up to an undeniably exciting climax although we are aware of an emptiness at the core of all this hyperactivity. Its emphatic G major close may initially sound like the exciting ending of the work and plunging straight into the B minor Adagio lamentoso creates an unnerving shock. Applause between these disjointed worlds deprives us of the full effect of this experience.

The fragmentary march does have an echo in the broken theme that starts this lament as first and second violins play alternate notes of the opening falling phrase, thus producing an aural illusion. As the first two horns provide a gentle heartbeat, the final apotheosis of the falling phrase comes with the central Andante section in D major. We can imagine that this is where Tchaikovsky may have ‘wept copiously’ as there appears to be no end to the grief. However, a quiet, single stroke of the gong (tamtam) marks the end of the grieving as life ebbs slowly away and we drift into silence.

And so the Pathétique ends like no previous symphony, but soon found followers in the next generations, in particular with Mahler’s Sixth and Ninth Symphonies and Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony. The shape of Mahler’s Ninth is remarkably similar to the Pathétique and in particular the two central movements: Mahler’s second movement Ländler echoing Tchaikovsky’s broken waltz and Mahler’s Rondo burlesque matching Tchaikovsky’s bombastic march.  Both Finales then take the consoling road to silence.

Tchaikovsky’s bombastic march could also be heard as an ancestor of Shostakovich’s nihilistic second movement of his Tenth Symphony composed some sixty years later in the wake of Stalin’s death.

Thus this is Tchaikovsky’s greatest symphony and an overwhelming emotional experience as he tackles head-on the issues of life and death. In so doing he joins together with other nineteenth century composers for whom death remained a figure of endless fascination, including Berlioz and Liszt, and then Mahler and Rachmaninoff in the generation that followed.

Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest attested to Tchaikovsky’s positive attitude both during and after the completion of the Pathétique; we may well appreciate the cathartic effect that this work may have had on the composer as he finally came to terms with Fate without equivocation and so poured out his heart in music of searing honesty and directness. With music of this power and intensity, why do we need to turn to conspiracy theories? The music provides all the answers we need.

© Timothy Dowling