Rimsky-Korsakov – Emily's Music Dump

April 29, 2015June 23, 2021

Borodin: String Quartets No. 1 and No. 2

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)

Borodin String Quartet (Mikhail Kopelman – violin; Andrei Abramenkov – violin; Dmitri Shebalin – viola; Valentin Berlinsky – cello)

Recorded in 1980 by Melodiya in the USSR (Released in the US by EMI in 1987)

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

It was “Kismet” that full-time scientist and part-time composer Alexander Borodin should write these exquisite string quartets! (see what I did there?)

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by John Warrack, 1982):

When Tchaikovsky and Borodin wrote their string quartets in the 1870s – Tchaikovsky’s three between 1871 and 1878, Borodin’s first between 1873 and 1879 – they were entering virgin territory.

Though both had written a good deal of chamber music as young men, these works were for the most part either student efforts or pieces conceived in a fairly unassuming manner for amateur entertainment.

The Russian string quartet, as a genre, did not exist. There were previous attempts – even Glinka completed a quartet, though he did not think much of it – but in Russian musicians’ endless debates on the course their art should take, the quartet did not play a large part.

The foundation of the Russian Musical Society in 1859 gave an enormous impetus to Russian musical life. Chamber music featured in the Society’s programmes; and new interest in the string quartet followed upon the founding of the Russian String Quartet in 1871.

Its members were Panov, Leonov, Yegorov and the young cellist, later to be a distinguished figure in Russian musical life, Alexander Kuznetsov. Tchaikovsky described them in 1874 as ‘an ideally harmonious ensemble.’ Other players, in St. Petersburg and Moscow, formed more or less regular ensembles; and the effect was to increase rapidly the appreciation and understanding of the classics of Western string quartet music among Russian musicians.

However, Russian composers were concerned to develop their own methods, rather than model themselves slavishly on Western example. More than the virtuoso French quatuor concertant tradition, it was to the Viennese tradition that they turned, despite the natural Russian affinity for Latin rather than Teutonic art; but when Borodin began work on his first quartet, he was clearly anxious to find structural methods that were more identifiably Russian.

The use of folk music, or melodies close to the Russian folk manner, was one immediate stimulus; but Borodin did not associate himself with the so-called Slavophiles, the more vigorously nationalistic of the Russians, and indeed when he showed his first sketches of this quartet to Mussorgsky and the critic Stassov, they were ‘horrified,’ he said.

He may have begun work as early as 1873-4; the sketches were ready by April 1875, more substantial work was done during a happy summer in 1877 in the country, and the quartet was finally completed, with the scherzo, in early August 1879.

The slow gestation can be partly explained by the fact that he was also working on Prince Igor (to which there are some thematic resemblances), also perhaps by the problems of building a novel work in a non-existent tradition.

The first performance, by the quartet of the Russian Musical Society (which had by now changed some of its members) was in St. Petersburg on December 30, 1880; it was a success, the players declaring that they were ‘simply delighted’ with the work.

Borodin’s attachment to classical practice led him to keep to the traditional sonata form structure for his first movement; and indeed after a moderately slow introduction, the first subject of the movement is actually based on a theme by Beethoven.

In admitting this, Borodin did not identify the theme: it is in fact from the finale of the B-flat Quartet, Op. 130. However, the handling of the theme is in no way like Beethoven: the flowing melody is passed around the two violins and the cello with variants of its basic form.

This varied repetition was a device much admired by Russian composers in Glinka, and in many different ways used as the substance of large-scale movements, but Borodin’s handling is unusually free and subtle

It leads to a second subject also in freely-flowing quavers, at first over a shifting drone bass; and only towards the close of the exposition does the music reach any real tension, in the wake of a fugue initiated by the cello. After the recapitulation, the movement ends quietly with a long mysterious coda.

With the Andante, Borodin turns openly to a more folk-like manner, and even, it seems, to an actual folk tune. At the time he wrote the movement, 1874-5, he was helping Rimsky-Korsakov with gathering material for his Collected Russian Folk-Songs; and a song that particularly attracted him in one of the anthologies they searched, Vassily Prokunin’s Russian National Songs (1872-3), was ‘The Song of the Sparrow Hills.’

Borodin used a version of it in Prince Igor, on which he was simultaneously working, and, beginning with the viola counterpoint to the opening tune, the whole Andante is permeated with variants and reminiscences of the song.

Borodin’s biographer Sergey Dyanin, who studies these correspondences in detail, suggests that the course of the movement is also colored by the words of the song. This concerns an eagle holding in his talons a crow which tells him of a young hero he has seen lying dead, while over him hover three pipits that are his mother, his sister and his wife.

If we wish to follow this idea, the first theme may be associated with the eagle and the crow, the fugato with the pipits, the impassioned ending with their grief.

Dyanin goes further and suggests associations with an imagined story of the young hero: there is no justification for this beyond Borodin’s known liking for background programmes, nor any reason to regard the lively Scherzo and Trio as anything but a brilliantly assured contrast to the somber mood of the Andante.

For the finale, Borodin returns to sonata form, once again prefacing it with a brief introduction. As before, there is a stronger emphasis on sustaining the movement’s considerable momentum by means of varied repetition, and insistence on the driving rhythms, than on any development in the manner of Beethoven.

By contrast with this work, Borodin’s second, and much better known, quartet was written in a short space of time, during a contented summer in the country at Zhitovo.

Increased assurance, rather than this burst of creativity, should perhaps be given credit for the quartet’s greater unity, not only of mood but also in thematic handling. Thus, there already appears in the first subject a dactylic figure (a long and two short notes) which the listener is clearly intended to recall when it occurs more prominently in the second subject.

These two related themes are the substance of the movement’s progress through the traditional exposition, development and recapitulation; but Borodin produces two other fragments of themes – they are scarcely more than figures of four bars each – which serve to shed contrasting emotional light on the main pair of themes.

The Scherzo is no less ingeniously put together. Perhaps Borodin thought it difficult to handle a traditional Scherzo-and-Trio in times so far removed from the Scherzo’s dance origins in the Minuet; but he acknowledges the connection by answering his fleeting, almost Mendelssohnian first theme with what is virtually a waltz. These are then made the material of a brief sonata movement.

After the famous Nocturne – a movement much abused by arrangers, and with its ravishing, somewhat oriental tune best presented as Borodin intended – the finale opens with a brusque, Beethovian gesture of question and answer.

Essentially, it is based on the rapidly and ingeniously varied treatment of these two themes (they immediately turn out to work together fugally) and a contrasting second subject. If the repeated question-and-answer interruptions suggest some private references, what matters to the listener is a skillfully and satisfyingly constructed finale, most original in form, to a brilliantly original quartet.

TRACK LISTING:

1-4: String Quartet No. 1 in A Major [36:51]
5-8: String Quartet No. 2 in D Major [28:53]

FINAL THOUGHT:

Methinks Mr. John Warrack is a bit of a snob in his notes. If you write CD notes about Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 and fail to mention that some of the melodies became the foundation of a popular Broadway musical (“Kismet” – he even won a posthumous Tony Award!) and an incredibly beautiful popular ballad (“And This Is My Beloved”) and instead just say the quartet has been “abused by arrangers” – you are probably a bit of a music snob. For the most part, nobody would have even heard of Borodin if it wasn’t for “Kismet.”

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)

February 6, 2013June 23, 2021

Anton Stepanovich Arensky – String Quartets – Piano Quintet

Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906)

String Quartet No. 1 in G Major, Op. 11

String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35

Piano Quintet in D Major, Op. 51

Ilona Prunyi – Lajtha Quartet

Recorded at the Rottenbiller Street Studio, Budapest from January 16 – 22, 1994

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

Sometimes, even though you wash your hands over and over again, you just can’t get the stink out – that’s how I feel about the Arensky String Quartets – I want them to be clean and smell good but every time I listen to them, I can’t get the stink out. (I realize that should be three sentences but I used dashes instead to preserve my one-sentence format – sorry.)

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Keith Anderson):

The son of keen amateur musicians, his father a doctor, Anton Arensky was born in Novgorod in 1861. His musical abilities were encouraged by his parents and he had his first piano lessons from his mother.

As a child he had begun to write music and when the family moved to St. Petersburg he was able to take more consistent musical instruction and after some preparation, in 1879 to enter the Conservatory, where his teachers included Rimsky-Korsakov for composition and Johannsen for counterpoint and fugue.

He was entrusted with the preparation of a piano reduction of the former’s opera The Snow Maiden and under Rimsky-Korsakov’s supervision began work on his own first opera A Dream on the Volga, which was later completed, to be staged in Moscow with some success in 1891.

His teacher, however, saw no great future for the works of his pupil, considering any success achieved likely to be transitory. This prediction has not proved true in every respect, since some, at least, of Arensky’s works have maintained a secure if limited place in standard orchestral and piano repertoire.

Arensky completed his studies at the Conservatory in 1882 and at once took up a position at the Moscow Conservatory as a teacher and later as professor of counterpoint and harmony. There his pupils included Rachmaninov, Gliere, Conyus and Scriabin, and there was fruitful contact and friendship with Tchakovsky and Taneyev.

He appeared as a conductor at concerts, notably of the Russian Choral Society, and his connection with church music led to his appointment, on the recommendation of Balakirev, as director of the imperial chapel in St. Petersburg, a position he took up in 1895 and held until 1901.

His final years left him free to follow a career as a composer, pianist and conductor, brought to an end in part through his dissolute way of life. He died of tuberculosis in 1906 at the age of forty-five.

In style and technique Arensky owed much to his teachers. He developed a sure command of harmonic, contrapuntal and structural musical resources, with a lyrical facility.

These elements are at once apparent in his String Quartet No. 1 in G major Opus 11, written in 1988. This shows, from the first bars, an easy understanding of the medium of the string quartet and of the possibilities still inherent in the traditional first movement form.

The second movement opens with a melody of fine contour, before a contrapuntal element is introduced by the cello, followed by the other instruments, and a treatment of the principal melodic material with more elaborately contrapuntal accompaniment.

The mood changes with a light-hearted Menuetto and contrasting Trio.

A Russian element makes its appearance in the Finale, with its variations on a Russian theme. These bring their surprises, not least in the traditional folk texture suggested by the plucked accompaniment in one variation and the later fragmentation of the theme, before a cadenza and the return of the theme in a mood of mounting excitement, leading to an emphatic and vigorous conclusion.

Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Opus 35, was written in 1895 and in its first movement presents a more somber atmosphere, lightened by secondary material, dramatically developed, but returning to its initial mood.

The theme of the second movement is stated simply, before its elaboration in a series of variations with the theme taken by each instrument in turn, before the possibilities of plucked strings and further textural resources are explored in a spirit that ventures far from the original material, sometimes with the energy of a scherzo, then relaxing into a gentler lyrical and eventually somber mood.

The third movement continues in its opening bars the Russian idiom, already heard in the theme of the second. The introduction is followed by what promises to be a vigorous fugue, on a Russian subject, superseded by a reminiscence of the melancholy of the opening of the quartet and followed by an energetic and triumphant conclusion.

The Piano Quintet in D major, Opus 51, was written in 1900.

The piano starts the first movement, soon joined by the string instruments in a historic opening of a texture that recalls that of Schumann’s Piano Quintet. Here, too, the piano plays a virtuoso part, whether in accompaniment or in the statement of thematic material.

The second movement is again in the form of a theme and variations, the former entrusted first to the strings, before the lyrical intervention of the piano, followed by a turn to the more dramatic, a change of mood to the solemn and then to the lyrical. The piano moves on to a recreation of Chopin, in romantic partnership, and then to music of greater vigor, subsiding into the language of the opening.

The capricious Scherzo breaks in, interrupted in its turn by a peaceful trio that brings momentary serenity here and when it returns after a repetition of the Scherzo, which itself has the last word.

A subject of Baroque contour introduces the last movement fugue, but the rigors of counterpoint are later submerged in a thoroughly romantic conclusion.

TRACK LISTING:

1-4: String Quartet No. 1 in G Major, Op. 11
5-7: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35
8-11: Piano Quintet in D Major, Op. 51

FINAL THOUGHT:

Look, I’m not going to slam Arensky too much here (he got enough of that in his life from the asshole Rimsky-Korsakov) but considering he was living a pretty wild life away from work (gambling, drinking like a fish, etc. etc.) the String Quartets are pretty boring. I’ll cut the Piano Quintet a little more slack because I just love piano quintets as a genre (for my money, there is nothing much better than the Shostakovich Piano Quintet – which I’ll get to in about two years!). Unfortunately for Arensky and his legacy – these are works you just don’t want to listen to that much.

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)

February 5, 2013June 23, 2021

Anton Stepanovich Arensky – The Piano Trios

Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906)

Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32

Piano Trio No. 2 in F minor, Op. 73

Beaux Arts Trio

Recorded at Performing Arts Center, Purchase College, USA – June 1994 (Philips)

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

Dude can write one hell of a gloomy melody – perfect for staring out an icy window at the frozen Moscow River on a miserable Sunday afternoon.

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by David Brown):

“In his youth Arensky did not escape some influence from me; later the influence came from Tchaikovsky. He will quickly be forgotten.” Thus Rimsky-Korsakov, not without a touch of pique, delivered his verdict upon his former pupil.

Born in 1861, Arensky had become Rimsky’s composition student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but on graduating brilliantly with a gold medal in 1882, he had been appointed a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where he was to teach both Rachmaninoff and Scriabin.

Removal to Russia’s old capital brought Arensky into contact with Tchaikovsky, and the natural creative affinity between the two men fostered mutual friendship. Rimsky’s influence faded, and Tchaikovsky became not only the most potent single force within Arensky’s music but also his staunchest supporter.

After Tchaikovsky’s death Arensky composed his Second String Quartet as a memorial, producing in the string orchestra arrangement he later made of the quarter’s slow movement (Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky) one work that has remained firmly in the repertoire.

Nor has Arensky’s First Piano Trio suffered the fate Rimsky had so balefully predicted for his music generally. Composed in 1894, this too was a memorial work, this time for the cellist Karl Davidov, who had also been a kindly director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory during Arensky’s student years.

It is a splendidly accomplished piece – and also eclectic; sometimes, for instance, the first movement of Mendelssohn’s First Piano Trio, also in D minor, seems to lurk behind Arensky’s opening Allegro moderato. But where Mendelssohn was urgent, Arensky gives his first theme a gentle and very characteristically elegiac tone, and his inventiveness is powerful enough to ensure that what follows has clear individuality, even though it may lack the sheer personality of a Tchaikovsky – or Rimsky.

Arensky’s craftsmanship and clarity of thought are always impeccable, and this precision is even more evident in the scherzo. Not a note is wasted in this enchanting confection built largely from a little stuttering figure (which later nearly gives birth to a more extended melodic idea), flying scales, and sparkling piano figurations.

The centre betrays the trio’s most explicit debt to earlier music, but this powerful echo from the second movement of Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto develops into a kind of lurching waltz very much Arensky’s own. There is careful revision of scoring when the scherzo returns, and a brief coda is added so that the movement may flicker into silence.

The heart of this memorial trio is the slow movement.

Deeply elegiac it certainly is – but not funereal; it parades no formal grief, but rather seems to reflect on precious personal memories. With its tender central section, it is surely as affectionate a tribute as any many could wish for.

Nor does the final movement end with any tone of heavy lamentation. Nevertheless, the more lyrical tune that alternates with the forthright opening music harks back to the main theme of the Elegia, preparing us for the explicit recall of the gentle music from that movement’s centre.

There follows a recollection of the whole trio’s beautiful opening melody, its sadness enhanced by a delicately chromatic harmonization before a vigorous return to the finale’s opening material rounds off the whole work.

In 1895, a year after completing his First Trio, Arensky moved back to St. Petersburg to become director of the Imperial Chapel choir. He remained in the post six years, retiring in 1901 with a pension. He was not free to pursue very successfully his career as pianist and conductor, and to compose at will.

But his lifestyle had long been disorderly; drinking and an addition to gambling had undermined his health, and early in 1906 tuberculosis finally claimed him.

His Second Piano Trio of 1905 was therefore one of his last works. The work’s subsequent fate would seem to substantiate Rimsky’s prediction; in fact, its almost total disappearance from the repertoire has been very much our loss.

It would be facile to label this music autumnal, but thoughtful it certainly is. The clear sectionalism of the D minor Trio’s first movement here gives way to a more continuous, more spacious flow, and the opening five notes of the theme quietly enunciated by the piano become a pervasive presence (and also a motto motif that insinuates itself into the following three movements).

Other motifs are gathered along the way to contribute their part in generating an unobtrusively magisterial movement as fine as any from a Russian of Arensky’s generation.

After such an impressive utterance, the main theme of the Romance might seem to promise something jejune, for all the telling harmonic detail in the accompaniment.

But the scale to which this theme grows confirms that Arensky’s greatest single asset was his melodic gift, and that gift is here confidently deployed to sustain the formidable span of an entire movement, braced the more firmly by the four haunting recurrences of the introductory four bars (the motto motif is heard just before the first theme returns for the last time).

The dazzling scherzo is as fleet and economical in texture as its counterpart in the First Trio, though its centre, with its disarmingly simple melodiousness, is more of a contrast (the motto motif quietly infiltrates this melodic flow at about midpoint).

After a truncated repetition of the scherzo, the finale’s quietly complex theme, with its contrapuntal opening and fastidious harmonic detail, might seem to be intractable material for variation treatment. But Arensky’s resourcefulness is equal to the challenge (especially in the weird valse of the third variation).

Several of the six variations seem deliberately to hard back to kinds of music heard in the preceding movements, and at the end of the grandiose final variation the motto motif builds a bridge to the coda, which returns to the reflective mood in which the movement had opened, drawing this sadly neglected work towards a muted but most satisfying resolution.

TRACK LISTING:

1-4: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32
5-14: Piano Trio No. 2 in F minor, Op. 73

FINAL THOUGHT:

Poor Arensky. So good but so flawed. Damn alcohol. Makes me so sad I need a really big drink (maybe at lunch!). But Anton Stepanovich did rate high enough to make it into the lyrics of a Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin song (Tchaikovsky) and that’s good enough for me!

“There’s Malichevsky, Rubinstein, Arensky, and Tschaikovsky, Sapelnikoff, Dimitrieff, Tscherepnin, Kryjanowsky, Godowsky, Arteiboucheff, Moniuszko, Akimenko, Solovieff, Prokofieff, Tiomkin, Korestchenko…”

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)