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Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)
Encyclopedia
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
composed his Symphony
No. 2 in C minor
, Op. 17 in 1872. One of Tchaikovsky's very joyous compositions, it was successful upon its premiere; it also won the favor of the group of nationalistic Russian composers known as "The Five
", led by Mily Balakirev
. Because Tchaikovsky used three Ukrainian folk songs
to great effect in this work, it was nicknamed the "Little Russian" by Nikolay Kashkin
, a friend of the composer as well as a well-known musical critic of Moscow. Ukraine was at that time frequently called "Little Russia".
Despite its initial success, Tchaikovsky was not satisfied with the symphony. He revised the work extensively in 1879-80, substantially rewriting the opening movement and shortening the finale. This revision is the version of the symphony usually performed today, though there have also been advocates for the original version. Among those advocates was the composer's friend and former student, Sergei Taneyev
, who was himself a noted composer and pedagogue.
, two flute
s, two oboe
s, two clarinet
s, two bassoon
s, four horns, two trumpet
s, three trombone
s, tuba
, timpani
, cymbal
s, bass drum
, tamtam
(last movement only), and strings
.
composer in the same sense as the group of Russian composers known as "The Five
" or "The Mighty Handful." Nevertheless, he retained a love for Russian folk song and Orthodox
chant
his entire life. His liturgical music includes a setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysotom and a Vespers which draw upon traditional chant. His affinity for folk song led him in 1868-1869 to publish Fifty Russian Folksongs arranged for piano duet. All but one he transcribed himself came from the collections of Villebois and Balakirev
.
in Ukraine
with his sister Aleksandra's family, the Davydovs. The Davydov estate had become the composer's favorite refuge. Alexandra had, in fact, encouraged the composer to make Kamenka his second home. His affection for the estate bore fruit in his using local songs in the symphony he was writing. He even once wrote, in jest, that true credit for the Little Russian's finale should have gone "to the real composer of the said work—Peter Gerasimovich." Gerasimovich, the elderly butler in the Davidov household, sang the folk-song "The Crane" to Tchaikovsky while the composer was working on the symphony.
One of Tchaikovsky's favorite anecdotes resulted from his nearly losing the sketches for the Little Russian on the way back to Moscow. To persuade a recalcitrant postmaster to hitch the horses to the coach in which he and his brother Modest had been travelling, Tchaikovsky presented himself as "Prince Volkonsky, gentleman of the Emperor's bedchamber." When they reached their evening stop, he noticed his luggage missing—including his work on the symphony. Fearing the postmaster had opened the luggage and learned his identity, he sent someone to fetch it. The intermediary returned empty-handed. The postmaster would only release the luggage to the prince himself.
Steeling himself, Tchaikovsky returned. His luggage had not been opened, much to his relief. He made small talk for some time with the postmaster and eventually asked the postmaster's name. "Tchaikovsky", the postmaster replied. Stunned, the composer thought this was perhaps a sharp-witted revenge. Eventually he learned "Tchaikovsky" was really the postmaster's name. After learning this fact, he delighted in recounting the story.
's Kamarinskaya. He believed fervently that in Kamarinskaya
lay the core of the entire school of Russian symphonic music, "just as the whole oak is in the acorn", as he wrote in his diary in 1888.
Kamarinskaya is based on two melodies. The first is a bridal song, "Izza gor" (From beyond the mountains). The second, the title song of the piece, is a naigrïsh, an instrumental dance to an ostinato
melody repeated for as long as the dancers can keep up with it. Glinka uses the principle from folk song of allowing the musical structure to unfold around a thematic constant—or actually two constants, since he uses two folk songs. He varies the background material surrounding these songs more than the songs themselves—orchestral color (timbre)
, harmonization, counterpoint
. This way, Glinka preserves the original character of the dance, complementing it with creative variations in the orchestral treatment.
Ideally, the themes in a Western piece interact, contrast and change. This activity fuels the composition's growth as an organic creation. Tension continues building as this thematic dialogue becomes increasingly complex. This dialogue or interchange eventually propels the piece to a climactic point of resolution. Kamarinskaya does not follow this pattern. Nor can it. The ostinato melody of the second song will not allow any motivic
development without distorting the character of the piece. The music repeats itself constantly, albeit with changing backgrounds. Because of this lack of thematic growth, the music remains static, not moving forward. Nor was this a unique problem with Kamarinskaya. Russian music, especially Russian folk music, stubbornly refused to follow the Western principles Tchaikovsky had learned in St. Petersburg. This may have been one reason his teacher Anton Rubinstein
did not consider folk songs to be viable musical material for anything other than local color.
For Tchaikovsky, Kamarinskaya offered a viable example of the creative possibilities of folk songs in a symphonic structure, using a variety of harmonic and contrapuntal combinations. It also offered a blueprint on how such a structure could be made to work, barring the potential for inertia or over-repetition. Because of his compositional training, Tchaikovsky could build the finale of the Little Russian more solidly and over a greater time scale than either Glinka or Mussorgsky could have done. Without Kamarinskaya, however, Tchaikovsky knew he did not have had a foundation upon which to build that finale.
's house in St. Petersburg on January 7, 1873. To Modest, he wrote, "[T]he whole company almost tore me to pieces with rapture—and Madame Rimskaya-Korsakova
begged me in tears to let her arrange it for piano duet". Neither Balakirev nor Mussorgsky
was present. Borodin
was there and may have approved of the work himself. Also present was music critic Vladimir Stasov. Impressed by what he heard, Stasov asked Tchaikovsky what he would consider writing next. Stasov would soon influence the composer in writing the symphonic poem The Tempest
and later, with Balakirev, the Manfred Symphony
.
The premiere of the complete symphony took place in Moscow under Nikolai Rubinstein on February 7, 1873. Tchaikovsky wrote Stasov the next day that it "enjoyed a great success, so great that Rubinstein wants to perform it again ... as by public demand." That publicly demanded performance, on April 9, was even more successful. A third Moscow performance, again by public demand, took place on May 27. Critical reaction was just as enthusiastic. Stasov wrote of the finale "in terms of color, facture and humor ... one of the most important creations of the entire Russian school." Hermann Laroche, who had travelled from St. Petersburg especially for the concert, wrote in the Moscow Register on February 1, "Not in a long time have I come across a work with such a powerful thematic development of ideas and with contrasts that are so well motivated and artistically thought out."
Meanwhile, Eduard Nápravník
conducted the St. Petersburg premiere on March 7. Despite a negative review by Cesar Cui
, the audience in Saint Petersburg received the piece positively enough to guarantee it a second performance the following season.
In 1879, Tchaikovsky asked for the return of the manuscript score. Upon its arrival, he started revising it. On January 2, 1880, he sent Bessel a progress report: "1. I have composed the first movement afresh, leaving only the introduction and coda in their previous form. 2. I have rescored the second movement. 3. I've altered the third movement, shortening and rescoring it. 4. I've shortened the finale and rescored it." He claimed he had completed this work in three days. By January 16, he wrote Sergey Taneyev, "This movement [the first] has come out compressed, short, and is not difficult. If the epithet 'impossible' applies to anything, it is this first movement in its original form. My God! How difficult, noisy, disjointed and muddle-headed this is!" The premiere of the revised version was played at St. Petersburg on February 12, 1881, under the direction of Karl Zike.
The 1880 revised version is usually the one performed and recorded today, but its true effectiveness has been questioned. At only 35 minutes running time (somewhat shorter than many symphonies of the period), it is also approximately five minutes shorter than its predecessor. Tchaikovsky stood by his revisions, informing Nápravník that the 1880 version was the only one to be performed. Eight years after Tchaikovsky's death, Taneyev compared the two versions and favored the 1872 original. Kashkin's opinion was the same.
Taneyev's opinion carried considerable weight. In the 19 years between the première of the original Little Russian and his appraisal of both versions, Taneyev had not only developed into an outstanding teacher of composition but also earned a reputation as one of the finest craftsmen among all Russian composers. He felt strongly enough about the matter to write the composer's brother Modest, "It seems to me that in some future concert you ought to let people hear the real Second Symphony, in its original form ... When I see you I will play both versions and you will probably agree with me about the superiority of the first."
More recently, Hans Keller
has advocated at least the occasional performance of the 1872 version. Dr. David Brown has added, "To be fair to the second version, it is certainly attractive, and structurally as clear as anything that Tchaikovsky could wish for. There is an undeniable heaviness in the original, but its imposing scale, and its richness of content and detail make it a far more impressive piece that ought to be restored to the place, which is still permanently usurped by its slighter and far less enterprising successor."
See Discussion section for a reference to the only recording of the Original Version of the work, made by Geoffrey Simon and the London Symphony Orchestra.
. From Romeo and Juliet
he used the idea of integrating the introduction, based on another Ukrainian folk song, with the main body of the movement by using material from it in the allegro. The first subject itself is both spacious and filled with a restless momentum resulting from constant tensions between melody and bass. These tensions are often highlighted by the accompanying figures, which are syncopated. The second subject, like the first, is tonally restless, often chromatic
and containing an almost constant contrapuntal interplay. While the exposition of these themes was limited in expressiveness, it was also rich in inventive detail and skillfully composed—what Dr. David Brown called "as monolithic a slab of symphonic music as Tchaikovsky had yet composed."
would write "The Great Gate of Kiev" for Pictures at an Exhibition two years later. The grandiosity is just a momentary mask. The mask drops with the first notes of the Allegro vivo. The music becomes both highly animated and michevious in tone as Tchaikovsky allows "The Crane" to virtually monopolize the next two minutes, set against a succession of varying backdrops. Such a spacious development leaves no time for a transition to a calmer second theme; Tchaikovsky lets it arrive unannounced. Even then, it is quickly replaced with more variations on "The Crane." The development is an unorthodox combination of these two themes accompanied by a series of widely striding bass notes, like some giant walking through. The second subject sometimes twists in mid-statement and even takes on the boisterous personality of "The Crane", building to a huge climax. In the 1872 version, the climax led to "The Crane" with an even more dizzying set of changing backgrounds.
. He became increasingly attracted to French music. This attraction was strengthened by his exposure to Léo Delibes
' Sylvia
and Georges Bizet
's Carmen
. Against the musical values he heard in this music, the massive scale, intricate structure, and textural complexity of the Little Russian's first movement became distasteful.
Tchaikovsky also changed the thematic material, eliminating the second subject and replacing it with the original first subject after rewriting it completely, since there was little contrast between these two themes. The other thematic change was the role of the introduction's folk song in the main body of the movement. In 1872 it had operated freely within the main movement, sometimes operating on equal terms with the other themes and at others even assuming a brief structural role in a manner both bold and unprecedented. After reappearing to complete the exposition, it had continued as a constant element of the entire development section before falling back to allow the first theme to reassume its role. Also, while Tchaikovsky had not written a transition written into the exposition, he had provided one in the recapitulation by restarting the folk song in combination with part of the first subject.
In his revision, Tchaikovsky confines the introduction's folk tune to the first part of the development and the coda. The new second half of the development focused on the new first subject. The recapitulation was orthodox, the last three bars tonally modified for the second subject to be restated in the tonic.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
composed his Symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
No. 2 in C minor
C minor
C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...
, Op. 17 in 1872. One of Tchaikovsky's very joyous compositions, it was successful upon its premiere; it also won the favor of the group of nationalistic Russian composers known as "The Five
The Five
The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie , refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin...
", led by Mily Balakirev
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...
. Because Tchaikovsky used three Ukrainian folk songs
Ukrainian folk music
Ukrainian folk music includes a number of varieties of ethnic , folkloric, folk inspired popular and folk inspired classical traditions....
to great effect in this work, it was nicknamed the "Little Russian" by Nikolay Kashkin
Nikolay Dimitriyevich Kashkin
Nikolay Dimitriyevich Kashkin was a music critic as well as a professor of piano and music theory at the Moscow Conservatoire. The son of a Voronezh bookseller, Kashkin was a self-taught musician who had started giving piano lessons by the time he was 13 years old. In 1860 he travelled to Moscow...
, a friend of the composer as well as a well-known musical critic of Moscow. Ukraine was at that time frequently called "Little Russia".
Despite its initial success, Tchaikovsky was not satisfied with the symphony. He revised the work extensively in 1879-80, substantially rewriting the opening movement and shortening the finale. This revision is the version of the symphony usually performed today, though there have also been advocates for the original version. Among those advocates was the composer's friend and former student, Sergei Taneyev
Sergei Taneyev
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev , was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author.-Life:...
, who was himself a noted composer and pedagogue.
Form
- Andante sostenuto — Allegro vivo (C minorC minorC minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...
).- A solo horn playing a Ukrainian variant of "Down by Mother Volga" sets the atmosphere for this movement. Tchaikovsky reintroduces this song in the development section, and the horn sings it once more at the movement's conclusion. The rather vigorous second subject utilises a melody which would also be used subsequently by Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
in his Russian Easter Festival OvertureRussian Easter Festival OvertureRussian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36 is a concert overture written by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov between August 1887 and April 1888, and dedicated to the memories of Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin, two members of the legendary "Mighty Handful." It is subtitled...
. The end of the exposition, in the relative major of E flat, leads straight into the development, in which material from both themes is heard. A long pedal note leads back to the second subject. Unusually, Tchaikovsky does not repeat the first subject theme in its entirety in this section, as is conventional, but instead uses it solely for the coda.
- A solo horn playing a Ukrainian variant of "Down by Mother Volga" sets the atmosphere for this movement. Tchaikovsky reintroduces this song in the development section, and the horn sings it once more at the movement's conclusion. The rather vigorous second subject utilises a melody which would also be used subsequently by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
- Andantino marziale, quasi moderato (E-flat major).
- This movement was originally a bridal march Tchaikovsky wrote for his unpublished opera UndineUndina (Tchaikovsky)Undina is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The work was composed in 1869. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sollogub, and is based on Vasily Zhukovsky's translation of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's Ondine.The opera was composed during the months of January to July, 1869, but...
. He quotes the folk song "Spin, O My Spinner" in the central section.
- This movement was originally a bridal march Tchaikovsky wrote for his unpublished opera Undine
- ScherzoScherzoA scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
. Allegro molto vivace (C minorC minorC minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...
).- Fleet and scampering, this movement does not quote an actual folk song but sounds folk song-like in its overall character. It takes the form of a da capoDa capoDa Capo is a musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning . It is often abbreviated D.C. It is a composer or publisher's directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space. In small pieces this might be the same thing as a repeat, but in larger works D.C...
scherzo and trio with a coda.
- Fleet and scampering, this movement does not quote an actual folk song but sounds folk song-like in its overall character. It takes the form of a da capo
- Finale. Moderato assai — Allegro vivo (C majorC majorC major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....
).- After a brief but expansive fanfare, Tchaikovsky quotes the folk song "The Crane", subjecting it to an increasingly intricate and colorful variations for orchestra. A more lyrical theme from the strings provides contrast before the symphony ends in a rousing C major conclusion.
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for piccoloPiccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
, two flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, two oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, two clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, two bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, four horns, two trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, three trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, tamtam
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
(last movement only), and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
.
Overview
Tchaikovsky may not be considered a nationalistNationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
composer in the same sense as the group of Russian composers known as "The Five
The Five
The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie , refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin...
" or "The Mighty Handful." Nevertheless, he retained a love for Russian folk song and Orthodox
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
chant
Chant
Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
his entire life. His liturgical music includes a setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysotom and a Vespers which draw upon traditional chant. His affinity for folk song led him in 1868-1869 to publish Fifty Russian Folksongs arranged for piano duet. All but one he transcribed himself came from the collections of Villebois and Balakirev
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...
.
Composition
Tchaikovsky wrote much of the Little Russian Symphony during his summer holiday at KamiankaKamianka
Kamianka is a city in Cherkasy Oblast of Ukraine. Population is 15,109 . It is a provincial town approx. 300 km. to South-East from Kiev, located on the bank of Tiasmyn River...
in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
with his sister Aleksandra's family, the Davydovs. The Davydov estate had become the composer's favorite refuge. Alexandra had, in fact, encouraged the composer to make Kamenka his second home. His affection for the estate bore fruit in his using local songs in the symphony he was writing. He even once wrote, in jest, that true credit for the Little Russian's finale should have gone "to the real composer of the said work—Peter Gerasimovich." Gerasimovich, the elderly butler in the Davidov household, sang the folk-song "The Crane" to Tchaikovsky while the composer was working on the symphony.
One of Tchaikovsky's favorite anecdotes resulted from his nearly losing the sketches for the Little Russian on the way back to Moscow. To persuade a recalcitrant postmaster to hitch the horses to the coach in which he and his brother Modest had been travelling, Tchaikovsky presented himself as "Prince Volkonsky, gentleman of the Emperor's bedchamber." When they reached their evening stop, he noticed his luggage missing—including his work on the symphony. Fearing the postmaster had opened the luggage and learned his identity, he sent someone to fetch it. The intermediary returned empty-handed. The postmaster would only release the luggage to the prince himself.
Steeling himself, Tchaikovsky returned. His luggage had not been opened, much to his relief. He made small talk for some time with the postmaster and eventually asked the postmaster's name. "Tchaikovsky", the postmaster replied. Stunned, the composer thought this was perhaps a sharp-witted revenge. Eventually he learned "Tchaikovsky" was really the postmaster's name. After learning this fact, he delighted in recounting the story.
Influence of Kamarinskaya
Tchaikovsky had used folk songs in his early days in St. Petersburg and in his student overture The Storm. Now he wanted to use folk songs as valid symphonic material. Tchaikovsky's greatest debt in this regard was to GlinkaMikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka , was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music...
's Kamarinskaya. He believed fervently that in Kamarinskaya
Kamarinskaya
Kamarinskaya is a Russian traditional folk dance, which is mostly known today as the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka's magnum opus....
lay the core of the entire school of Russian symphonic music, "just as the whole oak is in the acorn", as he wrote in his diary in 1888.
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
melody repeated for as long as the dancers can keep up with it. Glinka uses the principle from folk song of allowing the musical structure to unfold around a thematic constant—or actually two constants, since he uses two folk songs. He varies the background material surrounding these songs more than the songs themselves—orchestral color (timbre)
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
, harmonization, counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
. This way, Glinka preserves the original character of the dance, complementing it with creative variations in the orchestral treatment.
Ideally, the themes in a Western piece interact, contrast and change. This activity fuels the composition's growth as an organic creation. Tension continues building as this thematic dialogue becomes increasingly complex. This dialogue or interchange eventually propels the piece to a climactic point of resolution. Kamarinskaya does not follow this pattern. Nor can it. The ostinato melody of the second song will not allow any motivic
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
development without distorting the character of the piece. The music repeats itself constantly, albeit with changing backgrounds. Because of this lack of thematic growth, the music remains static, not moving forward. Nor was this a unique problem with Kamarinskaya. Russian music, especially Russian folk music, stubbornly refused to follow the Western principles Tchaikovsky had learned in St. Petersburg. This may have been one reason his teacher Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
did not consider folk songs to be viable musical material for anything other than local color.
For Tchaikovsky, Kamarinskaya offered a viable example of the creative possibilities of folk songs in a symphonic structure, using a variety of harmonic and contrapuntal combinations. It also offered a blueprint on how such a structure could be made to work, barring the potential for inertia or over-repetition. Because of his compositional training, Tchaikovsky could build the finale of the Little Russian more solidly and over a greater time scale than either Glinka or Mussorgsky could have done. Without Kamarinskaya, however, Tchaikovsky knew he did not have had a foundation upon which to build that finale.
Initial success
Tchaikovsky played the finale at a gathering at Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
's house in St. Petersburg on January 7, 1873. To Modest, he wrote, "[T]he whole company almost tore me to pieces with rapture—and Madame Rimskaya-Korsakova
Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova
Nadezhda Nikolayevna Rimskaya-Korsakova , 1848May 24, 1919) was a Russian pianist and composer as well as the wife of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. She was also the mother of Russian musicologist Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov.-Early years:...
begged me in tears to let her arrange it for piano duet". Neither Balakirev nor Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
was present. Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
was there and may have approved of the work himself. Also present was music critic Vladimir Stasov. Impressed by what he heard, Stasov asked Tchaikovsky what he would consider writing next. Stasov would soon influence the composer in writing the symphonic poem The Tempest
The Tempest (Tchaikovsky)
The Tempest , Symphonic Fantasia after Shakespeare, Op. 18, is a symphonic poem in F minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed in 1873. It was premiered in December 1873, conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein....
and later, with Balakirev, the Manfred Symphony
Manfred Symphony
The Manfred Symphony in B minor, Op. 58, is a programmatic symphony composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between May and September 1885. It is based on the poem "Manfred" written by Lord Byron in 1817...
.
The premiere of the complete symphony took place in Moscow under Nikolai Rubinstein on February 7, 1873. Tchaikovsky wrote Stasov the next day that it "enjoyed a great success, so great that Rubinstein wants to perform it again ... as by public demand." That publicly demanded performance, on April 9, was even more successful. A third Moscow performance, again by public demand, took place on May 27. Critical reaction was just as enthusiastic. Stasov wrote of the finale "in terms of color, facture and humor ... one of the most important creations of the entire Russian school." Hermann Laroche, who had travelled from St. Petersburg especially for the concert, wrote in the Moscow Register on February 1, "Not in a long time have I come across a work with such a powerful thematic development of ideas and with contrasts that are so well motivated and artistically thought out."
Meanwhile, Eduard Nápravník
Eduard Nápravník
Eduard Francevič Nápravník was a Czech conductor and composer, who settled in Russia and is best known for his leading role in Russian musical life as the principal conductor of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg for many decades...
conducted the St. Petersburg premiere on March 7. Despite a negative review by Cesar Cui
César Cui
César Antonovich Cui was a Russian of French and Lithuanian descent. His profession was as an army officer and a teacher of fortifications; his avocational life has particular significance in the history of music, in that he was a composer and music critic; in this sideline he is known as a...
, the audience in Saint Petersburg received the piece positively enough to guarantee it a second performance the following season.
Revision
One person not happy with the Little Russian was its composer. In the same letter describing the 1873 premiere, Tchaikovsky wrote to Stasov, "To tell you the truth, I'm not completely satisfied with the first three movements, but 'The Crane' ['Zhuravel'] itself [the finale which employs this Russian folk tune] hasn't come out so badly." Despite this, Tchaikovsky persuaded the publisher Bessel to publish the score. Bessel released a piano duet arrangement (prepared by Tchaikovsky after Rimskaya-Korsakova had to withdraw due to illness) but was late to produce a full score.In 1879, Tchaikovsky asked for the return of the manuscript score. Upon its arrival, he started revising it. On January 2, 1880, he sent Bessel a progress report: "1. I have composed the first movement afresh, leaving only the introduction and coda in their previous form. 2. I have rescored the second movement. 3. I've altered the third movement, shortening and rescoring it. 4. I've shortened the finale and rescored it." He claimed he had completed this work in three days. By January 16, he wrote Sergey Taneyev, "This movement [the first] has come out compressed, short, and is not difficult. If the epithet 'impossible' applies to anything, it is this first movement in its original form. My God! How difficult, noisy, disjointed and muddle-headed this is!" The premiere of the revised version was played at St. Petersburg on February 12, 1881, under the direction of Karl Zike.
Versions
Taneyev's opinion carried considerable weight. In the 19 years between the première of the original Little Russian and his appraisal of both versions, Taneyev had not only developed into an outstanding teacher of composition but also earned a reputation as one of the finest craftsmen among all Russian composers. He felt strongly enough about the matter to write the composer's brother Modest, "It seems to me that in some future concert you ought to let people hear the real Second Symphony, in its original form ... When I see you I will play both versions and you will probably agree with me about the superiority of the first."
More recently, Hans Keller
Hans Keller
Hans Keller was an influential Austrian-born British musician and writer who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being an insightful commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis and football...
has advocated at least the occasional performance of the 1872 version. Dr. David Brown has added, "To be fair to the second version, it is certainly attractive, and structurally as clear as anything that Tchaikovsky could wish for. There is an undeniable heaviness in the original, but its imposing scale, and its richness of content and detail make it a far more impressive piece that ought to be restored to the place, which is still permanently usurped by its slighter and far less enterprising successor."
See Discussion section for a reference to the only recording of the Original Version of the work, made by Geoffrey Simon and the London Symphony Orchestra.
1872 original
What endeared the Little Russian to The Five (or kuchka, as the group was also called) was not that Tchaikovsky used Ukrainian folk songs but, especially in the outer movements, how he allowed the unique characteristics of Russian folk song to dictate symphonic form. This was one of the goals toward which the kuchka strived. Tchaikovsky, with his Conservatory grounding, could sustain such development longer and more cohesively than his colleagues in the kuchka, but writing in this vein also had its pitfalls. Using similar intervals and phrases to the folk songs with repetitiveness typical of Russian folk music could easily create a static effect rather than one geared to movement and purpose. The melody tends, in fact, to become something near a set of variations on itself, to proceed by modulation rather than by development and contrast; and this clearly makes it recalcitrant to symphonic treatment. However, in 1872, Tchaikovsky did not see this lack of structural advancement as a problem since in all his most important symphonic movements to date his practice had been to close the first subject exactly where it had begun.Andante sostenuto—Allegro vivo
The 1872 version of the first movement is massive in scale, intricate in structure and complex texturally. Its weightiness contrasted well with the comparatively lightweight second movement and it balanced the finale well—a formal pattern the composer would repeat much later in the PathétiqueSymphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October of that year, nine days before his death...
. From Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)
Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The...
he used the idea of integrating the introduction, based on another Ukrainian folk song, with the main body of the movement by using material from it in the allegro. The first subject itself is both spacious and filled with a restless momentum resulting from constant tensions between melody and bass. These tensions are often highlighted by the accompanying figures, which are syncopated. The second subject, like the first, is tonally restless, often chromatic
Chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...
and containing an almost constant contrapuntal interplay. While the exposition of these themes was limited in expressiveness, it was also rich in inventive detail and skillfully composed—what Dr. David Brown called "as monolithic a slab of symphonic music as Tchaikovsky had yet composed."
Finale. Moderato assai—Allegro vivo
The finale is both the high point of the symphony and its composer's clearest demonstration of writing in line with the tradition of Glinka as embraced by the Five. He introduces the folk song "The Crane" in a grandiose introduction similar to how MussorgskyModest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
would write "The Great Gate of Kiev" for Pictures at an Exhibition two years later. The grandiosity is just a momentary mask. The mask drops with the first notes of the Allegro vivo. The music becomes both highly animated and michevious in tone as Tchaikovsky allows "The Crane" to virtually monopolize the next two minutes, set against a succession of varying backdrops. Such a spacious development leaves no time for a transition to a calmer second theme; Tchaikovsky lets it arrive unannounced. Even then, it is quickly replaced with more variations on "The Crane." The development is an unorthodox combination of these two themes accompanied by a series of widely striding bass notes, like some giant walking through. The second subject sometimes twists in mid-statement and even takes on the boisterous personality of "The Crane", building to a huge climax. In the 1872 version, the climax led to "The Crane" with an even more dizzying set of changing backgrounds.
1880 revision
In the years following the Little Russian, Tchaikovsky's musical ideals changed considerably. He became attracted to the qualities of lightness and grace he found in 18th century classical music, as shown in his Variations on a Rococo ThemeVariations on a Rococo Theme
The Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, for cello and orchestra was the closest Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello and orchestra. The style was inspired by Mozart, Tchaikovsky's role model, and makes it clear that Tchaikovsky admired the Classical style very...
. He became increasingly attracted to French music. This attraction was strengthened by his exposure to Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
' Sylvia
Sylvia (ballet)
Sylvia, originally Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane, is a full-length ballet in two or three acts, first choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. Sylvia is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features which make it unique...
and Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
. Against the musical values he heard in this music, the massive scale, intricate structure, and textural complexity of the Little Russian's first movement became distasteful.
Andante sostenuto—Allegro vivo
Tchaikovsky focused the majority of his revision on the first movement. The result was a completely new composition. The only parts he did not change were the introduction, coda and 28 bars of the development section. His objective was to clarify structure and texture. He compressed the material, excising more than 100 bars of music in the process. He introduced more abrupt contrasts in the material, which heightened the musical drama, allowed him to more sharply define structural divisions within the movement, and allowed the movement to follow a more orthodox sonata form.Tchaikovsky also changed the thematic material, eliminating the second subject and replacing it with the original first subject after rewriting it completely, since there was little contrast between these two themes. The other thematic change was the role of the introduction's folk song in the main body of the movement. In 1872 it had operated freely within the main movement, sometimes operating on equal terms with the other themes and at others even assuming a brief structural role in a manner both bold and unprecedented. After reappearing to complete the exposition, it had continued as a constant element of the entire development section before falling back to allow the first theme to reassume its role. Also, while Tchaikovsky had not written a transition written into the exposition, he had provided one in the recapitulation by restarting the folk song in combination with part of the first subject.
In his revision, Tchaikovsky confines the introduction's folk tune to the first part of the development and the coda. The new second half of the development focused on the new first subject. The recapitulation was orthodox, the last three bars tonally modified for the second subject to be restated in the tonic.
Finale. Moderato assai—Allegro vivo
While Tchaikovsky left the inner movements alone, structurally speaking, he cut 150 bars out of the finale. Instead of the climax leading to further development of "The Crane", it is now followed by a quieter interlude led by the movement's second subject.External links
- http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Symphonies/TH025/index.html