Tchaikowsky and His Orchestral Music 4

Tchaikowsky and His Orchestral Music 4

Tschaikowsky’s close friend and collaborator Kashkin is authority for

the statement that an adagio section in _Swan Lake_ was a love-duet

in the opera _Undine_ before it found new lodgings. Conversely, a

Danse Russe in the group of piano pieces, Op. 40, was written for

_Swan Lake_, thus balancing matters. Like _The Sleeping Beauty_ and

_The Nutcracker_, _Swan Lake_ is famed for its waltz. The score brims

with typical Tschaikowskyan melody, and probably for the first time

in ballet music a scheme of leitmotifs is used, two of the principal

subjects being the tremulous theme of the swans in flight and the

hauntingly wistful theme of Odette herself, assigned to the oboe

against soft strings and harp arpeggios. The music adjusts itself

snugly to the technic of pure classical ballet and solos and ensembles

are contrasted adroitly.

 

 

SUITE FROM THE BALLET, _The Sleeping Beauty_, OPUS 66

 

Based on Perrault’s famous fairy tale, Tschaikowsky’s _Sleeping Beauty_

ballet dates from the summer of 1889. Its music is generally regarded

as superior to that of the _Swan Lake_ ballet and inferior to that

of the _Nutcracker_ suite. Few ballet scores are so suitable in mood

and style for the action they accompany. The music is truly melodious

in Tschaikowsky’s lighter vein. The fantasy is conveyed in bright,

glittering colors, and, as Mrs. Newmarch pointed out, the music “never

descends to the commonplace level of the ordinary ballet music.”

There are thirty numbers in all, many of them, especially the waltz,

endearing in their lilting and haunting grace. The work was first

produced in St. Petersburg on January 2, 1890. In the early twenties,

Diaghileff, the great ballet producer, revived the work in London and

elsewhere with immense artistic _éclat_. Fragments of the ballet have

been gathered in the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe’s production of _Aurora’s

Wedding_.

 

 

SUITE FROM THE BALLET, _The Nutcracker_, OPUS 71-A

 

The usual fit of depression assailed Tschaikowsky while composing

the music for his _Nutcracker_ ballet, based on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s

story _Nussknacker und Mausekönig_ (“Nutcracker and Mouse King”).

Commissioned by the St. Petersburg Opera early in 1891, the work was

slow in taking shape. At length, on June 25, Tschaikowsky completed

the sketches for the projected ballet. What had taken him weeks should

have been finished in five days, he lamented. “No, the old man is

breaking up,” he wrote. “Not only does his hair drop out, or turn as

white as snow; not only does he lose his teeth, which refuse their

service; not only do his eyes weaken and tire easily; not only do his

feet walk badly, or drag themselves along, but, bit by bit, he loses

the capacity to do anything at all. The ballet is infinitely worse than

‘The Sleeping Beauty’—so much is certain.”

 

Apparently the first night audience agreed with him, for at the

première in the Imperial Opera House, the response was chilling. Yet an

earlier concert performance of the music had drawn plaudits from both

public and press. The ballet’s failure, however, was easy to explain.

The producer, Marius Petipa, fell ill, and the work of staging the

new ballet was entrusted to a man of inadequate skill and experience.

Then, the audience found it hard to thrill to the spectacle of children

dashing coyly about in the first act. And balletomanes, accustomed to

beauty and glamor in their favorite ballerinas, found the girl dancing

the part of the Sugarplum Fairy anything but appetizing to look at.

 

Act I of the ballet is concerned with a Christmas Tree party. The scene

is overrun with children and mechanical dolls. Little Marie is drawn

to a German Nutcracker, which is made to resemble an old man with huge

jaws. During a game, some boys accidentally break the Nutcracker. Marie

is saddened by the tragedy. That night she lies awake in bed, sleepless

with grief over the broken utensil. Finally, she jumps out of bed and

goes to take one more look at the beloved Nutcracker. Suddenly strange

sounds reach her ears. Mice! The Tree now seems to come to life and

grow massive. Toys begin to stir into action, followed by cakes and

candies. Even the Nutcracker creaks into life. Presently a battle

arises between the mice and the toys. The Nutcracker challenges the

Mouse King to a duel. Just as the Nutcracker is about to be felled,

Marie hurls a shoe and kills the royal rodent. And of course, the

Nutcracker promptly is transformed into a handsome prince. Arm in arm,

they leave for his magic kingdom.

 

The scene now changes to a mountain of jam for the second act. This is

the land ruled by the Sugarplum Fairy, who is awaiting the arrival of

Marie and her princely escort. The court cheers jubilantly when the

happy pair appears on the scene. What follows is the series of dances

usually heard in the concert hall. The sequence runs as follows:

 

_Miniature Overture_ (_Allegro giusto_, B-flat, 4-4), featuring

two sharply differentiated themes, scored largely for the higher

instruments.

 

_March_ (_Tempo di marcia vivo_, G major, 4-4), in which the main theme

is chanted by clarinets, horns and trumpets, as the children make their

measured entrance.

 

_Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy_ (_Andante con moto_, E minor, 2-4). Here

the celesta gives out the entrancing melody, with pizzicato strings

accompanying.

 

_Russian Dance: Trepak_ (_Tempo di trepak, molto vivace_, G major,

2-4), which grows out of a brisk rhythmic figure heard at the beginning.

 

_Arabian Dance_ (_Allegretto_, G minor, 3-8). Intended to convey

the idea of “Coffee.” A melody in Oriental mood is announced by the

clarinet, later picked up by the violins.

 

_Chinese Dance_ (_Allegretto moderato_, B-flat major, 4-4). Intended to

convey the idea of “Tea.” The melody is given to the flute against a

pizzicato figure sustained by bassoons and double basses.

 

_Dance of the Mirlitons_ (_Moderato assai_, D major, 2-4). For the main

theme three flutes join forces. Then comes a different melody given out

by the trumpets in F-sharp minor before the chief subject is back.

 

_Waltz of the Flowers_ (_Tempo di valse_, D major, 3-4). Woodwinds and

horns, aided by a harp-cadenza, offer some introductory phrases. Then

the horns give out the fetching main melody. Soon the clarinets take it

up. Flute, oboe, and strings bring in other themes, and the waltz comes

to a brilliant close.

 

 

CONCERTOS

 

 

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA, IN D MAJOR, OPUS 35

 

Before occupying its permanent niche in the repertory, Tschaikowsky’s

violin concerto had to run a fierce gantlet of fault-finding. Friend

and foe alike took pokes at it. The wonder is that it survived at all.

Even Mme. von Meck, Tschaikowsky’s patroness-saint, picked serious

flaws in the work, and the lady was known for her unwavering faith in

Tschaikowsky’s genius.

 

As a matter of fact, Tschaikowsky, often an unsparing critic of his

own music, started the trend by finding objection with the Andante

and rewriting it whole. That was in April, 1878. He was spending the

spring at Clarens, Switzerland. Joseph Kotek, a Russian violinist and

composer, was staying with him. Tschaikowsky and Kotek went over the

work several times, and evidently saw eye-to-eye on its merits.

 

Then came the first outside rebuff. Mme. von Meck was frankly

dissatisfied and showed why in detail. Tschaikowsky meekly wrote back

pleading guilty on some counts but advancing the hope that in time his

Lady Bountiful might come to like the concerto. He stood pat on the

first movement, which Mme. von Meck particularly assailed.

 

“Your frank judgment on my violin concerto pleased me very much,” he

writes. “It would have been very disagreeable to me if you, from any

fear of wounding the petty pride of a composer, had kept back your

opinion. However, I must defend a little the first movement of the

concerto.

 

“Of course, it houses, as does every piece that serves virtuoso

purposes, much that appeals chiefly to the mind; nevertheless, the

themes are not painfully evolved: the plan of this movement sprang

suddenly in my head and quickly ran into its mould. I shall not give up

the hope that in time the piece will give you greater pleasure.”

 

Next came a more serious setback from Leopold Auer, the widely

respected Petersburg virtuoso. Auer was then professor of violin at the

Imperial Conservatory and the Czar’s court violinist. Tschaikowsky,

hoping to induce Auer to launch the concerto on its career, originally

dedicated the work to him. But Auer glanced through the score and

promptly decided against it. It was “impossible to play.”

 

Tschaikowsky later made a quaintly worded entry in his diary to the

effect that Auer’s pronouncement cast “this unfortunate child of

my imagination for many years to come into the limbo of hopelessly

forgotten things.” Justly or unjustly, he even suspected Auer of having

prevailed on the violinist Emile Sauret to abstain from playing it in

St. Petersburg.

 

The ice finally broke when Adolf Brodsky, after two years of admitted

laziness and indecision, took it up and succeeded in performing it with

the Vienna Philharmonic on December 4, 1881. Yet, even Brodsky, despite

his wholehearted espousal of the work, complained to Tschaikowsky that

he had “crammed too many difficulties into it.” Previously, in Paris,

Brodsky had experimented with the concerto by playing it to Laroche,

who, whether because of Brodsky’s rendering or the concerto’s inherent

character, confessed “he could gain no true idea of the work.”

 

Even the première went against the new concerto. In the first place

Brodsky had to do some strong propagandizing to get Hans Richter to

include the work on a Philharmonic program. Then, only one rehearsal

was granted. The orchestral parts, according to Brodsky, “swarmed with

errors.” At the rehearsal nobody liked the new work. Besides, Richter

wanted to make cuts, but Brodsky promptly scotched the idea. Finally,

during the performance, the musicians, still far from having mastered

the music, accompanied everything pianissimo, “not to go smash.”

 

Of course, Brodsky outlines the chain of contretemps in a letter to

Tschaikowsky partly to assuage the composer’s pained feelings on

receiving news of the Vienna fiasco. For the première ended with a

broadside of hisses, completely obliterating the polite applause coming