Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season March - April 2018 | Page 31

SYMPHONIC DANCES
The BSO cello section
Many factors contributed to
Rachmaninoff’s creative drought. Exile
from Russia had turned his life upside
down. He had forfeited a considerable
fortune there and, in America, was forced
to turn to arduous annual tours as a
concert pianist to support his family. One
of the greatest pianists of our century,
he soon rebuilt his fortune, but a life on
Pullman cars exacted a heavy price on his
composing. More important was the loss
of his native land. “When I left Russia,
I left behind the desire to compose:
losing my country I lost myself also,” he
commented. “To the exile whose musical
roots, traditions and background have
been annihilated, there remains no desire
for self-expression.”
But the desire for self-expression still
smoldered. In the summer of 1940,
it blazed up again for the last time.
On August 21, he startled his friend
Eugene Ormandy, conductor of his
favorite Philadelphia Orchestra, with
news of a new composition. Ormandy
happily accepted the new work, and
Rachmaninoff rushed to orchestrate
it, completing it just in time for its
premiere by the Philadelphians on
January 3, 1941.
His swan song, Symphonic Dances,
is a retrospective work that sums up
Rachmaninoff’s musical and personal
philosophy. Yet it is also an astonishingly
youthful creation that shows the composer
at the peak of his powers. With its
incisive dance rhythms, it was intended
for the ballet, to be choreographed by
Rachmaninoff’s friend, the great Russian
choreographer Michel Fokine, but
Fokine’s sudden death in 1942 sadly killed
that possibility. Here, Rachmaninoff
creates a wondrous kaleidoscope of
instrumental colors from the mellow
crooning of an alto saxophone to the
dry-bones clatter of a xylophone, as he
surveys the world with the wisdom of
a man approaching life’s end.
In the first movement, the violins
softly establish the incessant chugging
rhythm of the first dance. Woodwinds
trace a three-note descending idea that
soon grows into the nervously driven
main theme. Then the tempo slows,

and Rachmaninoff gives us the last
of his heart-stirringly beautiful tunes,
introduced by the alto saxophone, a
visitor from Big Band jazz. Violins soon
sweep up this gorgeous melody, steeped
in the flavor of Russian folk song. In the
closing coda, the strings sing a lovely
Russian chant-like melody: a theme from
the composer’s First Symphony, a bitter
failure in his youth but now recalled with
tranquility through a radiant mist of bells,
harp and piano.
Movement two’s dance is a fantasmic
waltz, like something heard in a dream.
It is introduced by ominous brass chords
that return to disturb its flow. With
difficulty, the orchestra tries to launch the
waltz; finally, the English horn succeeds
in establishing the swaying melody.
Occasionally, the waltz blossoms lushly
in the strings, but biting harmonies
constantly undercut any sentimentality.
The finale opens with the weary sighs
of old age. Here, Rachmaninoff’s
old nemesis, the “Dies Irae” (“Day of
Judgment”), a Gregorian chant he used
so often in his music, returns as the
composer contemplates death. The music
seems to describe a man’s final struggle for
life and then its end, as woodwinds vanish
upward over a harp glissando. Music of
mourning issues from the depths of the
orchestra. But the tempo soon accelerates
to a dance of triumph. The “Dies Irae”
chant sounds again in the brass, but is
vanquished by a rhythmically vivacious
Orthodox chant melody rising from low
strings. This is the song “Blagosloven
Yesi, Gospodi” from Rachmaninoff’s
choral masterpiece All-Night Vigil,
telling of Christ’s resurrection. Here,
the composer seems to be joyfully
proclaiming his own faith in resurrected
life. At the end of the score, he wrote the
words: “I thank Thee, Lord!”
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo,
two oboes, English horn, two clarinets,
bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon,
alto saxophone, four horns, three trumpets,
three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion,
harp, piano and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 201 8
M A R –A P R 2018 / OV E R T U R E
29