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SYMPHONIC DANCES
, OP. 45 (1940)
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
The
Symphonic Dances
are scored for piccolo, two flutes, two
oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, E-flat alto
saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp,
piano, and strings. Performance time is 34 minutes.
Rachmaninov was one of the last of the great Russian
Romantics in a world turning toward modernism, angularity and the twelve-tone
system. He was also one of the last great pianists to be a composer of renown (in
previous generations, it was expected a pianist could also compose and improvise). The
world of his youth, of the Moscow Conservatory, and of conversations with Tchaikovsky
was fading away. World Wars and the Russian Revolution meant that Rachmaninov, a
descendent of the Russian aristocracy, was no longer welcome in his own country. He
would die in, of all places, Los Angeles, as one of the many European composers who
sought refuge in the United States at the time their home continent heaved, broke and
reshaped itself into a place they no longer recognized.
Perhaps it was a sense of nostalgia combined with alarm over his own
failing health that led to the composition of the
Symphonic Dances
. During a stay
on Long Island, New York with his friends, pianist Vladimir Horowitz and his wife and
choreographer Michel Fokine and his wife, Rachmaninov reported having a strong urge
to compose again as he began practicing and preparing for another performing tour.
Throughout his life Rachmaninov composed and then halted, sometimes for years
at a time, when his works received tepid or bad reviews. He suffered occasionally
from writer’s block, perhaps an indication of some insecurity over his abilities to
compose in the face of his popularity as a pianist (which put money in his pocket and
food on the family table). His Symphony No. 1 was panned by César Cui, one of the
monumental Russian composers (and a member of the so-called “Mighty Five”), and he
subsequently stopped composing for three years. Snippets of the Symphony show up
again, curiously, in the first movement of the
Symphonic Dances
, as if in some effort to
revive the sounds or redeem them. Bits of his
All-Night Vigil
are also self-quoted in the
final movement, along with the Medieval
Dies Irae
, one of the musical sequences for
the Requiem Mass (Mass for the Dead).
Rachmaninov had developed a friendship and good working partnership
with Eugene Ormandy, who supported the performances of Rachmaninov’s
compositions with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the
Symphonic Dances
would
be yet another premiere given by them, in 1941. It met with mixed reviews and little
critical acclaim. Rachmaninov simultaneously had to face the loss of his friend Fokine.
He had hoped that with Fokine (who had worked for Diaghilev at the Ballet Russes
and given the world such ballets as
The Firebird
,
Petrushka
and
Les Sylphides
) the
Symphonic Dances
would become a successful ballet. It had happened before for the
two of them, when they collaborated on a ballet version Rachmaninov’s
Variations on
a Theme of Paganini
called simply,
Paganini
(1939). Sadly, Rachmaninov wouldn’t live
long enough to see his
Symphonic Dances
become part of the orchestral repertoire.
His contributions to music, as both a performer and composer, were more far reaching
than he perhaps knew or supposed.
The notes above for the
Symphonic Dances
are by Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot.
Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, freelance
writer, and music critic. She received her Masters in Musicology at New England
Conservatory with her thesis on Björk Guðmundsdóttir and
aspects of the female experience in her fifth studio album,
Medúlla
.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
