LEC)POLD
STOKOWSK |
TCHAIKOVSKY
SYMPHONY NQ) 4
in F minor, Up. 36
Skryabin / Etude in C’ Minor, Op.2, No
(Orchestrated Stokowski)
AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Produced by SEYMOUR SOLOMON
Assistant producer Jack Lothrop
ee. ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) was one of
the shyest of men, but one also who had a great love for people.
As a friend wrote, “he avoided his fellow-men, because he did
not know how to hold his own among them.” It was the people
of eminence, opionated and arrogant in their ideas, whom he had
to deal with, and from whom he quailed. But in his music, his
love for people appears unmistakably, in the warm-heated
melodic appeal, clarity, and inner truth of the works. Notable in
this respect is the Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36.
dhe symphony was composed in 18/7, less than five years
before the birth in London of the great conductor who leads the
present performance, Leopold Stokowski. Tchaikovsky was then
thirty-seven. There had been lovely music in his previous three
symphonies. But this titanic fourth was nevertheless a break-
through; the first symphony in which he could reach down
profoundly to the inner man, and with this achieve a form and
style that were uniquely his own. His friend Sergey Taneyev was
disturbed by it, and wrote critically, “in every movement there
are phrases which sound like ballet music.” Tchaikovsky an-
swered gently, defending his right to use dance-like strains. And
he added to Taneyev, “there is not a single bar . . . which I have
not truly felt, and which is not an echo of my most intimate
spiritual life.”
‘This inner struggle, a revelation of internal pain combined
with a healing reaching out for the joys of life, has contributed
to the enormous popularity of the Fourth Symphony. It is in
this respect a programmatic work, but no more so, as Tchaikov-
sky pointed out to Taneyev, than the Beethoven Fifth Sym-
phony. Beethoven had said of this symphony’s opening motif,
‘thus fate knocks on the door.” And Tchaikovsky’s symphony is
imbued with the thought of an inexorable fate hanging over
people. But the sound of the two works, of course, is entirely
different. Beethoven’s themes are significant building elements in
a colossal harmonic-melodic development. Tchaikovsky’s themes
are more expanded emotionally and self-contained. Accordingly
their structural role is different, lending themselves to great
contrasts of thematic sections. Furthermore, the view of “fate”
differed from Beethoven, near the beginning of the nineteenth
century, to Tchaikovsky near its close. To Beethoven, it was a
challenge of history and real life, brutal but not necessarily
dismal. To Tchaikovsky, as he explained in a letter to Nadezhda
von Meck about the Fourth Symphony, fate was “that inevitable
force which checks our aspirations toward happiness ere they
reach the goal, which watches jealously lest our peace and bliss
should be complete and cloudless—a force which, like the sword
of Damocles, hangs perpetually over our heads and is always
embittering the soul.”
In the first movement of Symphony No. 4, Tchaikovsky’s
“fate” motif is stated and expanded, Andante sostenuto, to an
entire prologue of twenty-five bars. Then, Moderato con anima, a
subject enters on the violins which is two motifs in one, a
lamenting, sweeping descent and a more yearning rise. The
conflict between these two engenders the entire first section of
the movement. The energy quiets, and there is a magical
contrast, Moderato assai, quasi Andante; a section actually built
of a transformation of the earlier motifs but sounding like a
vision from another world, with its entrancing woodwind solos
and slow pp waltz of the strings. Tchaikovsky describes this in
the letter to Madame von Meck, “A sweet and tender dream
enfolds me. A bright and serene presence leads me on.” Then, as
he says, “Fate awakens us roughly.” The “fate” motif reenters
and brings back the earlier motifs in their original form, to
undergo a powerful developmental conflict. When it runs its
course, the contrasting section reappears, with the bassoon
leading the solos, and this inaugurates a violently conflictful
recapitulation and coda in which the ‘fate’ theme emerges
triumphant.
‘the slow movement is an ornamentation and extension of a
lovely and tender song melody, first played by the oboe;
Andantino in modo di canzone. There is a brighter middle
section, Piii mosso, with abrupt rhythms, like a subdued joy,
which Tchaikovsky writes of as “old memories ... moments
when young blood pulsed through our veins.””
The Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato (Allegro) is a fantasy move-
ment of remarkable originality. Tchaikovsky describes it to
Madame von Meck as “capricious arabesque ... suddenly
memory calls up the picture of a tipsy peasant and a street song.
From afar come the sounds of a military band.” Illuminating
Tchaikovsky’s entire style, is a comment he makes in another
letter. “You ask me how I manage my instrumentation. I never
compose in the abstract; that is to say the musical thought never
appears otherwise than in a suitable external form. In this way I
invent the musical idea and the instrumentation simultaneously.
Thus I thought out the scherzo of our symphony~at the
moment of its composition—exactly as you heard it. It is
inconceivable except as pizzicato.”” And this movement is but
one example of how, in thinking orchestrally, Tchaikovsky
dethrones the strings from their eminence and while writing
beautifully for them, makes them members of a “community of
equals” with the woodwinds and brass. Noiably in this move-
ment the opening section is for pizzicato strings, the dancing
“tipsy peasant” motif is for woodwinds, the march is for pp
brass, and even when combined the motifs retain their distinct
instrumental sound.
‘The Finale, Allegro con fuoco, is spoken of by Tchaikovsky as
“a rustic holiday .. . indefatigable Fate reminds us once more of
its presence. Others pay no heed to us . . . Happiness does exist,
simple and unspoilt. Be glad in others’ happiness. This makes life
possible.”’ It is a sonata-form rondo, with a fanfare-like opening
motif, and a second theme employing a Russian folk song. It
creates a rousing Russian festival, at the height of which the
“fate” theme gives its ominous warning. There is a stormy,
disturbed but affirmative conclusion.
A love of life permeates this symphony, in conflict with the
thought of “fate” as a sword of Damocles. It makes its effect in
so compelling a way that it is hard to realize today how original
it was, and how disturbed some critics were by it. But they were
also disturbed by the beautiful opera, Eugene Onegin, that he
composed at about the same time. It was so different from the
established norms of grand opera that they claimed it was no
opera. Tchaikovsky wrote to Taneyev with some bitterness,
calling it “my modest work, which I shall not describe as an
opera, if it is published. I should like to call it ‘lyric scenes,’ or
something of that kind.” But he added, “I can at least affirm
that the music proceeds in the most literal sense from my inmost
being.” And this is likewise true of the Fourth Symphony.
Alexander Skryabin (1872-1915) was probably the most
original and experimental of the generation of Russian com-
posers that followed Tchaikovsky. His music has steadily won
greater appreciation. His Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 2 No. 1,
was written for piano. As orchestrated by Leopold Stokowski,
with imagination and devotion, its beautiful and languorous
strains will reach new listeners. sate Finkelee
LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI
Leopold Stokowsk1 Is the son of Boleslaw Kopernik Stokowski
of Lublin, Poland. His music studies took place at the Royal
College of Music in London, at Oxford, and in Paris, Munich and
Berlin. His debut as a conductor took place in 1908 in Paris. The
following year he went to the United States as conductor of the
Cincinnati Symphony. In 1912 he became Music Director of the
Philadelphia Orchestra. He developed this into one of the fore-
most symphonic groups in the world. During the quarter century
of his directorship, this superb instrument set standards for
beauty and splendor of tone, and for profundity of performance.
Stokowski had a unique quality of gaining the cooperation of the
musicians while giving them freedom of individual expression,
thereby developing an orchestra that was flexible and eloquent,
capable of playing every kind of music.
Stokowski was the first to conduct in the United States
various works of Mahler, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Satie, Proko-
fiev and Shostakovich. He has given hundreds of American scores
their first hearing. He has traveled over almost all of the world,
studying various music cultures. His deep interest in Asiatic
music looks forward to a time of mutually beneficial interaction
between this tradition and that of European music.
in October, 1962, Stokowski created the American Sym-
phony Orchestra to enhance symphonic life in the United States.
Composed partly of the most talented young players who
graduated from the great music schools of the country, and
partly from the experienced free-lance players of New York with
whom he had long been making records, its chief aim was to give
opportunity and musical experience to highly talented people
regardless of age, sex or racial origins, and to make programs
drawing upon the greatest compositions from the 16th century
to the 20th century. The unusual vitality and high caliber of
performance has made the critics compare the American
Symphony Orchestra with the great orchestras of the world,
most of which have had many years to grow.
VANGUARD RECORDING SOCIETY, INC. 71 West 23rd Street, New
York, N.Y. 10010 Printed in U.S.A.
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