Rachmaninoff 2 | Nikita Mndoyants, piano

April 6, 2019 7:30pm | Nikita Mndoyants, piano

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Dvorak: Symphony No. 8

Two epic works from the Slavic repertoire, Dvorak’s thrilling 8th Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s dramatic 2nd Piano Concerto, are both beloved icons in the symphonic catalogue. Marvel at the talents of the latest winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition as the SSO steadfastly champions young talents, destined for greatness.

Opening Notes at 6:45 pm: Christopher Purdy of WOSU Classical 101

Performance Prelude at 6:45 pm: LiveWire String Quartet of the Symphony Youth Orchestra

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Nikita Mndoyants

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Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born April 1, 1873 in Oneg (near Novgorod), Russia; died March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Composed in 1900-1901. Premiered on October 14, 1901 in Moscow, conducted by Alexander Siloti with the composer as soloist.
Scoring: pairs of woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum and strings.

When he was old and as mellow as he would ever get, Rachmaninoff wrote these words about his early years: “Although I had to fight for recognition, as most younger men must, although I have experienced all the troubles and sorrow which precede success, and although I know how important it is for an artist to be spared such troubles, I realize, when I look back on my early life, that it was enjoyable, in spite of all its vexations and bitterness.” The greatest “bitterness” of Rachmaninoff’s career was brought about by his Symphony No. 1, a work that had such a disastrous premiere he forbade any other performances of the piece while he was alive. The total failure of the Symphony at its premiere in 1897 was a traumatic disappointment to him, one that thrust him into such a mental depression that he suffered a complete nervous collapse.

An aunt of Rachmaninoff, Varvara Satina, had recently been successfully treated for an emotional disturbance by a certain Dr. Nicholas Dahl, a Moscow physician who was familiar with the latest psychiatric discoveries in France and Vienna, and it was arranged that Rachmaninoff should visit him. Years later, in his memoirs, the composer recalled the malady and the treatment: “[Following the performance of the First Symphony,] something within me snapped. All my self-confidence broke down. A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch sighing over my ruined life. My only occupation consisted in giving a few piano lessons to keep myself alive.” For more than a year, Rachmaninoff’s condition persisted. He began his daily visits to Dr. Dahl in January 1900. “My relatives had informed Dr. Dahl that he must by all means cure me of my apathetic condition and bring about such results that I would again be able to compose. Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was desired of me, and he was informed ‘a concerto for pianoforte,’ which I had given up in despair of ever writing. In consequence, I heard repeated, day after day, the same hypnotic formula, as I lay half somnolent in an armchair in Dr. Dahl’s consulting room: ‘You will start to compose a concerto — You will work with the greatest of ease — The composition will be of excellent quality.’ Always it was the same, without interruption.” Almost like a movie script from the Hollywood where Rachmaninoff eventually settled, the good doctor’s unusual cure worked. “Although it may seem impossible to believe,” Rachmaninoff continued, “this treatment really helped me. I started to compose again at the beginning of the summer.” In gratitude, he dedicated the new Concerto in C minor to Dr. Dahl.

Rachmaninoff wrote the second and third movements of his rehabilitative Concerto in the summer and early autumn of 1900 in Italy, Novgorod and Moscow; this incomplete version was heard at a charity concert in Moscow on October 14th, with the composer at the keyboard and Alexander Siloti conducting. The opening movement was composed by the following spring, and the premiere of the finished work was given on October 14, 1901 with the same two principals and the orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society.

The C minor Concerto begins with eight bell-tone chords from the solo piano that herald the surging main theme, which is announced by the strings. A climax is achieved before a sudden drop in intensity makes way for the arching second theme, initiated by the soloist. The development section, concerned largely with the first theme, is propelled by a martial rhythm that continues with undiminished energy into the recapitulation. The second theme returns in the horn before the martial mood is re-established to close the movement. The Adagio, a long-limbed nocturne with a running commentary of sweeping figurations from the piano, contains some beautiful concerted instrumental writing. The finale resumes the marching rhythmic motion of the first movement with its introduction and bold main theme. Standing in bold relief to this vigorous music is the lyrical second theme, one of the best-loved melodies in the entire orchestral literature, a grand inspiration in the ripest Romantic tradition. (Years ago, this melody was lifted from the Concerto by the tunesmiths of Tin Pan Alley and fitted with sufficiently maudlin phrases to become the popular hit Full Moon and Empty Arms.) These two themes, the martial and the romantic, alternate for the remainder of the movement. The coda rises through a finely crafted line of mounting tension to bring this work to an electrifying close.

Antonín Dvořák
Born September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia; died May 1, 1904 in Prague.

Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88
Composed in 1889. Premiered on February 2, 1890 in Prague, conducted by the composer.
Scoring: woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

You would probably have liked Dvořák. He was born a simple (in the best sense) man of the soil who retained a love of country, nature and peasant ways all his life. In his later years he wrote, “In spite of the fact that I have moved about in the great world of music, I shall remain what I have always been — a simple Czech musician.” Few passions ruffled his life — music, of course; the rustic pleasures of country life; the company of old friends; caring for his pigeons; and a child-like fascination with railroads. When he was in Prague during the winters, he took daily walks to the Franz Josef Station to gaze in awe at the great iron wagons. The timetables were as ingrained in his thinking as were the chord progressions of his music, and he knew all the specifications of the engines that puffed through Prague. When his students returned from a journey, he would pester them until they recalled exactly which locomotive had pulled their train. Milton Cross sketched him thus: “To the end of his days he remained shy, uncomfortable in the presence of those he regarded as his social superiors, and frequently remiss in his social behavior. He was never completely at ease in large cities, with the demands they made on him. He was happiest when he was close to the soil, raising pigeons, taking long, solitary walks in the hills and forests of the Bohemia he loved so deeply. Yet he was by no means a recluse. In the company of his intimate friends, particularly after a few beers, he was voluble, gregarious, expansive and good-humored.” His music reflected his salubrious nature, and Harold Schonberg concluded, “He remained throughout his entire creative span the happiest and least neurotic of the late Romantics.... With Handel and Haydn, he is the healthiest of all composers.” The G major Symphony, in its warm emotionalism and pastoral contentment, mirrors its creator. It was composed during Dvořák’s annual summer retreat to the country at Vysoká, and his happy contentment with his surroundings shines through the music.

Dvořák was absolutely profligate with themes in the opening movement. In the exposition, which comprises the first 126 measures of the work, there are no fewer than eight separate melodies that are tossed out with an ease and speed reminiscent of Mozart’s fecundity. The first theme is presented without preamble in the rich hues of trombones, low strings and low woodwinds in the dark coloring of G minor. This tonality soon yields to the chirruping G major of the flute melody, but much of the movement shifts effortlessly between major and minor keys, lending a certain air of nostalgia to the work. The opening melody is recalled to initiate both the development and the recapitulation. In the former, it reappears in its original guise and even, surprisingly, in its original key. The recapitulation begins as this theme is hurled forth by the trumpets in a stentorian setting greatly heightened in emotional weight from its former presentations. The coda is invested with the rhythm and high good spirits of an energetic country dance to bring the movement to its rousing ending.

The second movement is one of the most original formal conceptions in late-19th-century symphonic music. It comprises two kinds of music, one hesitant and somewhat lachrymose, the other stately and smoothly flowing. Some have interpreted these strains as tonal pictures of a crumbling ruin (the opening section resembles “The Old Castle” movement of the Poetic Tone Pictures for Piano, Op. 85) and a peasant wedding. This may be. But looked at in the abstract, as pure music, the movement also points forward to the interest of many 20th-century composers in creating a work from disparate types of music. The compositions of Mahler, Ives and Stravinsky, among others, are filled with instances of what seems to be two different pieces pushed up against each other for the dramatic effect their juxtaposition creates. In this movement, Dvořák built two blocks of music that are different not just in key and melody, but in their total concept. The first is indefinite in tonality, rhythm and cadence; its theme is a collection of fragments; its texture is sparse. The following section is greatly contrasted: its key is unambiguous; its rhythm and cadence points are clear; its melody is a long, continuous span. The form of this movement is created as much by texture and sonority as by the traditional means of melody and tonality. It is a daring and prophetic type of music-making from a composer who is usually regarded as an arch conservative, as the critic for The New York Times recognized in 1892. “The music of the symphony,” he wrote following the New York premiere on March 12th, “is certainly modern and strange enough to meet the demands of the most modern extremists.”

The third movement is a lilting essay much in the style of the Austrian folk dance, the Ländler. Like the beginning of the Symphony, it opens in G minor with a mood of sweet melancholy, but gives way to a languid melody in G major for the central trio. Following the repeat of the scherzo, a vivacious coda in faster tempo paves the way to the finale.

The trumpets herald the start of the finale, a theme and variations with a central section resembling a development in character. The bustling second variation returns as a sort of formal mile-marker — it introduces the “development” and begins the coda. (One point of good fun in this variation: note how the horns, pulling the low woodwinds along with them, ascend to their upper register and blow forth an excited trill generated by the pure joy of the surrounding music.) This wonderful Symphony ends swiftly and resoundingly amid a burst of high spirits and warm-hearted good feelings. ©2018 Dr. Richard

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