Arensky, Rachmaninov, Medtner, Prokofiev: Tribute to the Masters: Russian Piano Music

Description

This is my second CD dedicated to Russian piano music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this album I present early works by young S. Rachmaninov and S. Prokofiev. Rachmaninov’s “Morceaux de Fantaisie” Op.3 reminds me of my cheerful student life in Minsk. Written by my favourite composer, S. Prokofiev’s Sonata Op.1 No.1 was my first and most liked from all the Prokofiev sonatas I have ever played. I also dedicated a special place on my album for N. Medtner and his “Fairy Tales” Op.20 and 26.
The album starts with the Prelude Op.36 by A. Arensky. Rachmaninov was a student of Arensky and he dedicated several piano works to his dear mentor. I therefore think that it would be fitting to dedicate this album to all my wonderful teachers over the years.
Julia Sigova @ 2022

A reproach which is often moved against Western musical historiography is that it deals with individual composers. Indeed, it frequently resembles a collection of silhouettes rather than a true narrative. Of course, music is made by people and for people, and should one be oblivious of the human component of the musical language, the result would be a dramatic impoverishment of our capability to understand music. Here, however, the point is not to forget the individuals behind the music, but rather to show that no man is an island. In other words, that no composer writes in isolation from his or her biographical, musical, and cultural context. One can, of course, reject one or all of these contexts; nonetheless, even this rejection is a form of relationship with the surrounding framework. When, however, a musician is deeply inserted within the proximate culture, and has a net of friendships with some of his colleagues, teachers, students, etc., then the comprehension of that context is fundamental for grasping the composer’s true value.
Indeed, as concerns relationships, both human and cultural, there were perhaps few places like the two main cities of Russia between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – and, indeed, the situation would remain under same aspects unchanged even after the Revolution. In spite of the complete difference in social and statal structure between Czarist Russia and the USSR, geography did not change, in fact. Moscow and St. Petersburg were, remained, and still are, the greatest cities in an immense territory. Unavoidably, before the Revolution and after it, and even today, the greatest talents of music, creativity, arts, who happen to be born in the vast territory of Russia and of many of its current neighbouring states end up in either of these cities. They can in fact provide education at a level unparalleled in most other cities, and the varied provenance of their inhabitants (be they stable or occasional) nourishes a unique melting pot of cultures, viewpoints, and insights.
The composers featured in this Da Vinci Classics CD constitute good examples of these processes. In the great Russian cities, artists could meet their equals, study with the most important teachers, and either adopt or refuse the aesthetic models transmitted to them. Unavoidably, deep friendships and powerful enmities sprouted, whereby the mutual aesthetic evaluations dovetailed with personal sympathy or antipathy.
For instance, Anton Arensky came from a wealthy family originally from Novgorod. Having demonstrated a considerable musical talent before his tenth birthday, Anton moved, with his parents, to St. Petersburg, where he was quickly admitted to Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s composition class. Rimsky-Korsakov belonged in the aesthetical sphere of the “Mighty Five”, who deliberately declined the seemingly compulsory adoption of forms, modes, and styles of contemporaneous Western music. They sought a musical language for Russia which had to be its own, rooted in the magnificent tradition of folk music, but open to the future precisely due to the innovation granted by these deep roots. The Mighty Five set themselves particularly over and against the likes of Pëtr Ilić Čajkovskij, who, instead, employed some ideas taken from the popular repertoire but incorporated them within a frankly Western perspective.
Ironically, Arensky, who had come to St. Petersburg in order to study with Rimsky-Korsakov, ended up as a great admirer of Čajkovskij. This was noticed by his very teacher, who once famously wrote: “In his youth, Arensky did not escape some influence from me; later, the influence came from Tchaikovsky. He will quickly be forgotten”.
Rimsky’s judgement was too harsh, and probably embittered by personal reasons. Still, it is undeniable that Čajkovskij’s profile looms large on Arensky’s own musical style. Probably, however, Rimsky’s bluntly expressed opinion was also due to his disapproval for a lifestyle which verged on the bohemian, and which would (at least in Rimsky’s opinion) lead Arensky to a premature death.
In spite of this, Arensky’s legacy was important, both as concerns the rich heritage of his own works, and his activity as a pedagogue. His class at the Conservatory of Moscow included some of the greatest composers who lived between the two centuries: among them, Alexander Scriabin, Alexander Gretchaninov and no less a pianist-cum-composer than Sergei Rachmaninov. The originality of Arensky’s style comes also from his careful study of the choral idiom and of the intricacies of polyphony: a talent he derived from his years as the Director of the Imperial Choir. At his premature death, in 1906, due to tuberculosis, another young composer wrote to his own father: “Composer Arensky died a few days ago. His was a desperate case already in the past autumn. He wrote (three) operas and several other things, many of which are beautiful”. This appreciative young man was no other than Sergei Prokofiev. As we will shortly see, this happened just two years before Prokofiev’s composition of his first Piano Sonata, op. 1, also recorded here.
Rachmaninov’s Morceaux de fantaisie date back to the last decade of the nineteenth century. They were written by their composer when he was not yet twenty years old. This is all the more impressive if one considers that, within this collection, there is the Prelude in C-sharp minor which has become an iconic landmark and a signature piece for its composer’s entire output.
This set was composed by Rachmaninov during a particularly difficult period of his life, where he struggled with depression, poverty, and illness. However, even though tragedy is abundantly present within these pieces, they are also shrewdly conceived, representing, on the one hand, the already mature quintessence of Rachmaninov’s pianism, and, on the other, a collection clearly conceived to “please” the large audiences. And so it did: the Prelude quickly became one of its composer’s most famous works, and one which he frequently performed as an encore in his international tours as a concert pianist.
The collection is dedicated to no other than Arensky, who, has been said above, had been Rachmaninov’s teacher, and whose poetical world seems to be observable, as a watermark, in his student’s originality. Rachmaninov displayed the set to Čajkovskij – him again! – who did not conceal his admiration for the striking Prelude.
The “fantasy” cited in the title of Rachmaninov’s collection is not a musical genre, but rather a state of mind. These are not Fantasies as a musical (non-)form; rather, they are an attempt to translate into music the variability of our interior world, of our thoughts, and of our dreams.
This somehow corresponds to the effort of another composer who features prominently in this CD, i.e. Nikolaj Medtner.
His life has something of the novel – and, indeed, it has become the subject matter of a thriller recently. Born in Moscow, Medtner was taught music first by his mother, and then by her brother. He soon revealed an impressive talent as a pianist, winning the prestigious Anton Rubinstein prize for performance. However, Medtner favoured composition over playing, even though this choice was far from pleasing to his family. He did continue playing in the subsequent years, but focussing first and foremost on his own works, which he performed extensively.
His musical style is difficult to describe, since it can be defined as both very conservative and very innovative at the same time. On the one hand, in fact, Medtner drew from the Beethovenian tradition (but Beethoven had been his senior by approximately one century!); on the other, however, his study of the visionary works of the late Beethoven led him to anticipate some of the most striking developments in twentieth-century music.
His eventful life included marrying his brother’s divorced wife (but with the brother’s consent) when his brother was interned in Germany; an emigration to the West after the Revolution, and the august patronage of an Indian maharajah who generously funded him, the recording of his works, and the posthumous publication of several of his works.
Medtner’s numerous piano Sonatas are mostly in one movement, and, as we will see, this lesson was not lost on Prokofiev. In turn, Rachmaninov would demonstrate his appreciation for Medtner by dedicating his Fourth Piano Concerto to him.
Medtner’s output for the piano includes also his Skazki, translated commonly as “fairy tales”, but which are indeed “tales” of the Russian folklore, not always provided with the magical elements of faerie. Rachmaninov delighted in these pieces, and would once exclaim: “No one tells such tales as Kolya” (i.e. Medtner). Indeed, even though they are not always furnished with clear non-musical narratives, these pieces beautifully succeed in narrating musical tales through the musical language.
Together with Scriabin’s Sonatas, and particularly with the Fifth, which Prokofiev was practising at the time, Medtner’s Skazki are one of the main sources behind Prokofiev’s inspired composition of his own First Piano Sonata. It is dedicated to a childhood friend of the composer, the veterinary surgeon Vassily Morolyov, who was a great enthusiast of Scriabin’s music. Still, if Scriabin’s shadow looms large on Prokofiev’s First Sonata, Medtner’s influence is no less pronounced. This applies both to form and to content, and reaches its most evident manifestation at the very beginning of Prokofiev’s Sonata: its opening motif, with chromatic descents in octaves, seems to clearly refer to a similar passage, found towards the end of the second Tale from Medtner’s op. 8. Another possible reference to Medtner is in the Sonata’s key, which is F minor as was that of both Scriabin’s and Medtner’s first sonatas.
Together, these works demonstrate the power of reciprocal admiration and knowledge among composers – which, of course, does not rule out a certain amount of, at times healthy, rivalry –; while each not only maintained, but rather developed his own style, this was the result of a wider process involving the music and the culture of the era, and which shines clearly in our ears when we listen to their works.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2022