Program
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943)
Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27 (1906-1907)
I. Largo – Allegro moderato
II. Allegro molto
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro vivace
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908)
Scheherazade, a symphonic suite, Op. 35 (1888)
I. The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship
Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non troppo – Tranquillo
II. The Story of the Kalendar Prince
Lento – Andantino – Allegro molto – Vivace scherzando – Moderato assai – Allegro molto ed animato
III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess
Andantino quasi allegretto – Pochissimo più mosso – Come prima – Pochissimo più animato
IV. Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman. Conclusion.
Allegro molto – Lento – Vivo – Allegro non troppo e maestoso – Tempo come I
The musicAeterna Orchestra
Conductor – Teodor Currentzis
Details
The October programme of the musicAeterna Orchestra combines two symphonic masterpieces of the Moscow and St. Petersburg schools of composition – the Symphony No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff and the symphonic suite Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Between these compositions, there are 20 years, the first Russian revolution, and the emerging watershed between the art of the 19th and the 20th centuries. However, they both share a common stylistic field and represent the peaks of Russian classical-romantic symphonism.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, a 34-year-old composer, a successful pianist, and an opera conductor, wrote the second Symphony almost keeping it secret after having left the Bolshoi Theatre and settled in Dresden. To the composer’s surprise, German newspapers reported on its completion. “I wrote a symphony. It’s true!” — Rachmaninoff wrote to his friend in February 1907. — “Except that it is finished in rough. I completed it a month ago and immediately gave it up. I got terribly tired of it, and I don’t think about it anymore. But how it got into the press — I have no idea.” The author, who had his fingers burned at the unsuccessful performance of his Symphony No. 1, did not trust other conductors to premiere his new composition, so he himself led the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre on February 21, 1908. The second symphony quickly and firmly entered the repertoire of orchestras around the world, however, until the 1960s it was performed in a truncated form. Only at the end of the 20th century it became customary to perform the cycle lasting almost an hour without any cuts.
The four-part work exhaustively demonstrates all facets of Rachmaninov’s gift — melodic richness, melancholic contemplation, vivid drama, and mastery of counterpoint (the symphony is dedicated to the composer’s teacher, the polyphonist Sergei Taneyev). The third movement of the symphony with its soulful lyrical theme was particularly popular with the audience. However, musicologists who were Rachmaninoff’s contemporaries especially noted the Scherzo, while paying tribute of admiration to the whole cycle: “…This movement captivates with an infinite wealth of contrasts… I would like to say that this movement of the symphony is better than the others, but when remembering the rest, one begins to hesitate… In it, in the symphony, there is no insight into other worlds, superhuman revelations. But how fresh it is all over, how beautiful!”
“According to his own words, Rimsky-Korsakov conceived the orchestral piece on the plot of some episodes from the Scheherazade in the winter of 1887–1888, and wrote and orchestrated it in just a month spent in the summer at the country house in Nezhgovitsy. The composer prefaced the handwritten score with an explanatory programme quoting the beginning of the famous fairy tales collection “The Arabian Nights”, and gave the titles to four parts of the suite: “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship”, “The Story of the Kalendar Prince”, “The Young Prince and the Young Princess”, “Baghdad Holiday. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman. Conclusion”. In order to stop the search for references to specific fairy tales, the composer removed the titles and explanations in the printed editions of the score. However, even without the programme, “Scheherazade” remained in history as the most narrative and most picturesque orchestral work of the leading figure of the 19th century St. Petersburg school of composition.
The formidable prologue of the suite is considered to be the theme of Shahriyar. The violin solo with harp accompaniment is Scheherazade: her theme appears in all four movements of the suite. The theme of Shahriyar is transformed into the theme of the sea, and the flute solo is traditionally called the theme of Sinbad the Sailor’s ship … The first movement depicts a sea storm. The second tells a story about battles and oriental wonders. The third movement is a love story. The last movement gathers all the musical images of the suite in the whirlwind of a celebration, which gives way to the whirlwinds of another, even more violent sea storm. Its Oriental colour, the clarity and freshness of melodies, incredible orchestral colourfulness turned “Scheherazade” into one of the most performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s opuses in the world.