THE TIME TCHAIKOVSKY ATE HIS OWN WORDS (QUOTE OF THE DAY) | PIANO TRIO IN A MINOR

Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky

Today’s Quote of the Day comes to us from birthday composer Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky of Russia who was born 176 years ago today.

The following extract is from a letter dated 5th of November 1880, and is but one of the many pieces of private correspondence between Tchaikovsky and his wealthy benefactress and close companion Nadezhda von Meck.

The quote, from the hindsight offered by prosperity, is delightfully retrospective: in the quote re-printed below, Tchaikovsky expresses his frustration and intense disregard for the concept of composing a piano trio (which von Meck had requested of the 19th century romantic composer):

“You ask why I have never written a trio. Forgive me, dear friend, I would do anything to give you pleasure but this is beyond me! My acoustic apparatus is so ordered that I simply cannot endure the combination of pianoforte with violin or violoncello. To my mind the timbre of these instruments will not blend, and I assure you it is a torture to me to have to listen to a trio or sonata of any kind for piano and strings. I cannot explain this physiological peculiarity; I simply state it as a fact.”

-Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky, to Nadezhda von Meck, 5th November, 1880

Nadezhda von Meck

Tchaikovsky, of course, would come to eat his own words when he sat down - only one year later - to begin sketching the outline for his breathtaking Piano trio in A minor, which would hold it’s public premiere just shy of two years following the composers' outright refusal to ever pen such a work at the Russian Musical Society at Moscow in October of 1882.

Further correspondence preserved by biographers and scholars of this most influential composer would showcase a gradual yielding to the formation of violin, cello and piano into a seamless whole – perhaps in an effort to appease his beloved Nadezhda, who would go on to support the composer in good times and bad – including during the fallout from Tchaikovsky’s disastrous marriage to his former pupil Antonina Miliukova in 1877, for a period of some thirteen years.

Certainly, Tchaikovsky owed much of his success to the musical savant von Meck, who had supplied the composer with an annual salary in the staggering amount of 6000 rubles - more than enough for Tchaikovsky to dedicate his attentions to composing music full-time.

Whatever Tchaikovsky’s motivation for constructing the work, the Piano Trio in A minor would prove to both speculative composer and admirer alike of the Russian musician's prowess in the arena.

Listen below to the highly emotive “Pezzo Elegiaco,” the 1st movement of Tchaikovsky’s 50th opus, his Piano Trio in A minor, in a powerful rendition of the piece by violinist Susanna Yoko Henkel, Monika Leskovar, cello; and Ian Fountain on piano (separated into two parts):

   

-Rose.

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TCHAIKOVSKY'S ENTIRE OEUVRE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE AS COMPLETE WORKS ARE DIGITIZED feat. Did You Know?

Tchaikovsky's entire oeuvre has been digitized. Access the archive here.

Add the iconic Russian composer Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky to the growing list of composers who joined the digital age long after death.

Representatives of the Pyotr Tchaikovsky International Charitable Foundation and Muzyka Publishing House recently announced the digitization of the complete works of the 19th century romantic icon, which are presently available in the composers' native tongue on the Foundation's website - a version in English is set to follow later this year.

The virtual treasure trove of scores are derived from both scholar and composer submissions which had been entered into a 63 "fundamental edition" volumes published by the Muzyka Publishing House over some five decades, beginning in 1940 and concluding in 1990.

The digitization process was both a massive and laborious undertaking – over the span of “several years” experts scoured over each and every one of the 63 volumes of collected works for any errant inaccuracies, and, where necessary, restored and cited their corrections.

Speaking through the organization's press service, Foundation President and General Director of Muzyka publishing Mark Zilberkvit referred to the project as one which bears a “significance of which [it] is difficult to overestimate.” “It is important,” he continued, “that the complete works appear in the public domain. Now all professionals and amateurs can access the music."

The archive may be accessed here.

Listen below to the Münchner Philharmonie perform the gorgeous andante cantabile of Tchaikovsky's 5^th Symphony (op. 64 in E minor) conducted by maestro Celibidache (movement 2 begins at 18:42):



Did You Know?

Pyotr's younger brother
Modest provided a source
of comfort for the often
melancholic composer to
air his grievances.

As undeniably stunning as Tchaikovsky's 5th is, the composer had not thought of commencing work on writing a new symphony until the spring of 1888, some ten years following a period of apathetic self-doubt following the disastrous 1878 premiere of his 4th symphony, which had been widely critically panned.

Pyotr first made mention of his intention in letters to his brother Modest and benefactress/confidante Nadezhda von Meck to spend the spring and summer months of 1888 composing at Frolovskoye, just outside of Kiln. A sense of personal vacillation during this process had not evaded him, and was clearly evident in his correspondence to Modest and Frau von Meck, in which the composer flip-flopped between perspectives, both pessimistic and optimistic.

On the 27th May 1888, he wrote to his younger brother:

“[it's now] mid/late May, [yet] I've still not yet made a start, because I've been working on various proofs. But I can honestly say that the urge to create has deserted me. What does this mean? Am I really written out? I've no ideas or inspiration whatsoever!"

This was followed three days later with a soupçon more hope: 

"Now I am gradually, and with some difficulty, squeezing a symphony out of my dulled brain." 

By the 22nd of June, Pyotr would lament in an exchange with the patroness von Meck that “inspiration” had “deserted [him] completely."

After toiling for some three months, Tchaikovsky had at last found himself humbled by his work, telling the benefactress: 

“Now, as the symphony nears its end, I can view it objectively, and at the culmination of the work I must say that, thank God, it is no worse than my previous ones. This accomplishment means a great deal to me!!"  

Pyotr even went so far as to later proclaim 

“My symphony is ready, and I think that I have not miscalculated, that it has turned out well."

Critical feedback for Tchaikovsky's 5th was swift, and very much mixed: whilst praised by those in the composer's inner circle following the Moscow premiere in December 1888 (which the composer himself conducted – the first orchestral performance having been held in St. Petersburg one month prior) as possibly his “best work," the demand for the symphony was wholly underwhelming back in St. Petersburg and in Prague, where a mere three performances were held (twice in the Russian Imperial capital and only once in the Czech republic) prompting Tchaikovsky to lament his misfortune in a letter of characteristic self loathing to von Meck:

"With each day that passes I am increasingly certain that my last symphony is not a successful work, and the realisation that it is unsuccessful (or perhaps that my powers are declining) is very distressing to me. The symphony is too colourful, massive, insincere, drawn out and on the whole very unsympathetic... Am I indeed, as they say, written out?... If so, then this is terrible. Whether my misgivings are mistaken or not, regrettably I have concluded that the symphony written in 1888 is poorer than the one written in 1877."

It would take a successful performance in Hamburg in March of 1889 to sate Tchaikovsky's doubts as to his compositional ability (and of his reservations regarding beauty of the 5th itself.) He quietly raved over the concert in exchanges with both Modest and his trusted nephew, Vladimir Daydov:

"The musicians took to the music more and more each time the symphony was played. At rehearsals there was general enthusiasm, flourishes, etc. The concert also went excellently. As a result, I no longer have a bad opinion of the symphony, and like it once more... The Fifth Symphony was again performed magnificently, and I have started to love it again; my earlier judgement was undeservedly harsh..." 

Theodore Avé-Lallemant

Perhaps aiding in Tchaikovsky's change in perception lay in the encouragement of the works' dedicatee - Pyotr dedicated his 5th to Theodore Avé-Lallemant, then Chief Director of the Philharmonic Society, of whose acquaintance the composer first made shortly after his arrival in Hamburg in January 1888, where the composer was scheduled to conduct a concert of his own music at the Philharmonie (the program included his Serenade for String Orchestra, the Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Theme and Variations from Suite No. 3.) Herr Avé-Lallemant, who was known for his criticism of much of Tchaikovsky's oeuvre, was nevertheless so bowled over by Tchaikovsky's potential (as a potential future "German" composer), that he made arrangements for a private meeting with Pyotr two days following the performance, to be held in his home, where he surprised Tchaikovsky with a request that the composer emigrate to the country.

Writing in his memoirs, Tchaikovsky recalled the moment he received the unexpected request:

"First of all I should mention the chief director of the Philharmonic Society, the aged Herr Avé-Lallemant. This most venerable old man of over eighty paid me great attention and treated me with paternal affection. In spite of his age and frailness, as well as the long distance from his house, he attended my two rehearsals, the concert, and even Dr Bernuth's reception [after the concert]. In his extraordinary kindness he went so far as to request some photographs of me, which were to be taken by the best photographer in Hamburg. He even called on me to ask about this and arranged an appointment when I could pose for the photographer, as well as deciding on my behalf what size and format the photographs should be produced in. When I then visited this kindly old gentleman, who passionately loves music and who, as should be obvious to the reader, is quite free from that aversion which many old people have against everything that has been written in recent times, I had a very lengthy and interesting conversation with him.

Herr Avé-Lallemant openly confessed that there was a lot in those works of mine which had been performed in Hamburg that wasn't to his liking; that he could not stand my noisy instrumentation; that he hated some of the orchestral effects which I resorted to (especially with regard to the percussion), but that all the same he saw in me the makings of a good, truly German composer. Almost with tears in his eyes he exhorted me to leave Russia and to settle permanently in Germany, where the classical traditions and the general atmosphere of a higher culture would not fail to correct me and rid me of those deficiencies which he felt were easily accountable by the fact that I was born and grew up in a country which was still so unenlightened and backward when compared to Germany as regards progress.

Evidently, Herr Avé-Lallemant harbours a deep prejudice against Russia, and I tried as far as I could to mitigate his hostile feelings towards our country, which, incidentally, this venerable Russophobe did not actually express openly, but merely allowed to shine through in his words. We parted as great friends."

Unfortunately for Tchaikovsky, the warm reception awarded the composer following the performance at the Hamburg Philharmonie in March the following year (which the composer himself also conducted) went un-witnessed by the director, who had taken ill and was thus unable to attend the concert.

-Rose.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: MAY 31, 2016: TCHAIKOVSKY AND THE POWER OF MUSIC

Today's Quote of the Day comes from the preserved collection of private correspondence between 19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky and his patron and intimate confidante, the wealthy benefactress Nadezhda von Meck.

The following quote is just one of many exquisitely rendered exchanges between composer and patron, and is paraphrased from a modern translation of a biography on Tchaikovsky originally published at the dawn of the twentieth century, as penned by the musician's brother Modeste.*

"Your [music] is so wonderful, Peter Ilich, that it throws me as I hoped into a state of blissful madness; a condition in which one loses consciousness of all that is bitter and offensive in life.... Listening to such music, I seem to soar above all earthly thoughts, my temples throb, my heart beats wildly, a mist swims before my eyes and my ears drink in the enchantment of the music. I feel that all is well with me, and I do not want to be reawakened..."

The title "The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" will be coming soon to unravelingmusicalmyths Book Reviews, alongside several other highly erudite and immensely enjoyable reads.

*Note: quote does not refer to the hymn below, but rather to a march by Tchaikovsky. I am featuring below the
composers' setting of Hymn of the Cherubim as today's feature sacred piece as it - at least to my taste - best
suits the sentiment von Meck so eloquently conveyed in her correspondence with the composer. Performed
by the USSR Ministry Of Culture Chamber Choir:

"Ah, God, how great is the man who has power to give others such moments of bliss!"
- Nadezhda von Meck.

-Rose.

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TODAY IN MUSIC HISTORY: 4 MAJOR EVENTS THAT OCCURED ON THE 4TH DAY OF MARCH

The month of March features some of Classical Music’s most notable births, events, premieres and deaths. Bizarrely, a vast number of them occurred on the fourth of March. 

"Town Crier" - Anthonie van den Bos (1763-1838)

Here are just a few notable entries to start off the month:

Antonio Vivaldi

March 1678, Venice, Italy:

March 4th marks the birth of 17th century Italy’s most tempestuous master of the violin, Antonio Vivaldi.

Immediately baptized following his birth, the sickly future “Prete Rosso” and maestro di violino at the Ospedale della Pietà (an Italian orphanage for abandoned girls funded by the state), would lead a highly sensationalized, occasionally scandalous and remarkably influential life as one of the baroque era’s most prolific composers.

At young Antonio’s side throughout many of the composers’ musical milestones was his father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi, himself a respected violinist who operated out of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice and who would become a founding father of the Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia association of musicians (whose President was the gifted baroque composer Giovanni Legrenzi). 
 It was Battista who had defended his son Antonio Vivaldi before the board at the Pietà when it's commissioners opted to expel the temperamental teacher from the Ospedale after failing to secure for the unsuspecting Vivaldi the required 2/3 majority vote in favor of continued tenure - resulting in the Junior Vivaldi's unexpected and abrupt dismissal in 1709 - a fateful end to his six year tenure as teacher of the violin. Vivaldi's dismissal from the Pietà is alleged to have been the result of the ‘Red Priests' (as Vivaldi was then known about town - alluding to the shade of his hair, apparently fiery temper and frequent outbursts directed at both staff and pupils). (the latter two attributions being later, snarkily inspired - yet quite apt - adscriptions). 
 The Senior Vivaldi is also believed to have been young Antonio’s first violin teacher, and would take with him his son whilst on tour.

It was only after a brief stint with the Priesthood (which Vivaldi is believed to have been forced into by Battista at the age of 15 – he earned Holy Orders in 1703) that Antonio Vivaldi set the bulk of his focus into composition. This shift in dynamic would occur during the violinist’s tenure as teacher at the Ospedale when the musician, ever hungry for continental fame, made the fateful decision to showcase the talents of his most gifted students by composing a series of sonatas and concertos for them.

A facsimile of a so-called "Roger Edition" of
the L'estro Armonico,^[1] by French publisher
Estienne Roger of Amsterdam. Roger is
believed to have printed the Armonico in
spades, 'creating' some twenty-odd prints
for the then-staggering price of 143
florins, making the collection the most
valuable of any current (he presently
had two) Vivaldi Opus.

Within two years of having been ordained a Priest (which amounted to almost no time spent worshiping in Church: Vivaldi would join the Ospedale that same year) and voted into mentorship at the Orphange, the temperamental composer published his first set of 12 trio sonatas in 1705 and 12 solo sonatas in 1709, followed two years later by the iconic L’estro Armonico, Vivaldi’s third Opus– a collection of twelve concertos – that would place both Vivaldi and Venice on the map as the birthplace of the highly complex Concerti that would later dominate 18th century classical music. Vivaldi's innovations on the "Corelli method" featured dynamic lyricism, an innovative use of ritornelli and Vivaldi’s signature employment of the so-called 'fast-slow-fast' musical format.
 It was through the multiple publications of Vivaldi’s third opus which had so astounded Italian audiences during one of the Ospedales' Sunday/Feast Day public concerts in Venice, that the hopeful composer achieved his lifelong goal of international renown. Editions of the Armonico were published in Amsterdam, making their way to London and France – two meccas of Western Classical Music – with further editions of the work appearing in Dresden, Vienna and Schwerin and attracting composers of the ilk of Johann Sebastian Bach to create his own collection of ten keyboard transcriptions, six of which were borrowed from the Armonico.

Listen below to the beautiful Largo e Spiccato from L’Estro Armonico's 11th concerto in D minor : *

*The largo e spiccato is the 4th movement of Vivaldi's 11th Concerto and is catalogued under the RV number 565.

Footnote & Suggested Reading:

• ^[1]The L'estro Armonico was dedicated by it's composer to Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany.

• Read an in-depth analysis of L’estro Armonico and of it’s influential significance to both contemporaneous and future composers of Western Classical music (External Link).

 

Also occurring on the 4th day of March:

A late portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1791, Vienna, Austria: 

An Unraveling Musical Myths favorite, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in his 35th and final year on this musical sphere [likely] performed at the première of his rather muted, yet undeniably delightful Piano Concerto No. 27 at the Jahn’s [concert] Hall in Vienna, marking the often-sickly composer’s last performance before the public before succumbing to an un-diagnosed, highly theorized illness some nine months later in December of 1791, weeks shy of his 36th birthday.

Read more about Mozart and his spectacular - yet all too brief -  musical journey on the European Continent, and re-discover why his profoundly majestic works of art (what else could one call the composers exquisite oeuvre!) continue to delight, thrill, and astonish audiences across the globe in the present era:

UNRAVELINGMUSICALMYTHS MOZART ARCHIVE


The Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1877, Moscow, Russia:

It was also on the 4th day of March, this time in the late 19th century that audiences at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater first took in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s [now] infamous ballet^[1] and orchestral masterpiece “Swan Lake.” What may be surprising to modern spectators of the frequently staged work is the fact that the ballets' premiere was anything but a ravishing success. In a quite markèd contrast, the premier production was a complete disaster.
 This was the era of Romantics – moreover, it was the era of innovation, risk taking – of mass expansion. With it brought the abundant, and loud vocal and orchestral crescendos of late classical composer Rossini, who would in turn influence the 'noisy' brass of Berlioz - signifying the new, superfluously expressive romantic age - and both of whom unwittingly ushered into the blossoming era the all inclusive "gesamtkunstwerk" stylings of Wagner.
 As in the case of most any new arena, not everyone was ready or welcome for such dynamic alterations from the status quo. Such feelings of discontent weren’t relegated only to critics, but to composers as well, each of whom had to struggle to find their own niche – their own rhythm – in the rapidly developing, and critically fluctuating new era.

Surprisingly, Tchaikovsky’s orchestrations for Swan Lake – now considered to be some of the most moving – and at times soothing – melodic music to come out of 19th century Russia was, at it's premier performance, universally panned by contemporaneous critics, who found it too “noisy” and too reminiscent of Wagner (who, incidentally, was as controversial then as he is in modern times, albeit for different reasons). Adding to the catastrophe of the premiere, according to said critics, was poor stage design and a set of inept dancers.

Talk about a disaster!

Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, performed by the Kirov Ballet:


Footnotes:

^[1]score.

Austrian composer Gustav Mahler

1895 Berlin, Germany:

It was on the fourth of March at the tail end of the 19th century that 'Mahlerites' in Berlin saw the world premiere of Late-Romantic Composer Gustav Mahler’s most prized 2nd Symphony (only the first three movements) in the German capital with Mahler himself at the helm conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

Originally composed as a single-movement symphonic poem in 1888 drawing on the composers frequently employed themes on death (the Symphony’s first movement was aptly titled "Totenfeier" (Funeral Rites)), Mahler would compose the second and third movements five years later, in 1893. It would be after the death of beloved conductor and hero to the solemn tempered composer, Hans von Bülow in 1894 that Mahler would experience an epiphany which struck him through, hard and fast “like lightning,” transforming the piece into an orchestral and vocally lush treatise on man’s eternal and universal quest to conclusively answer the question “Is there life after death?” (a question asked by the composer himself in the 1901 programme for a premier performance of the 2nd Symphony in Dresden - which he later abandoned).

Over the course of the first three movements, man’s travels in life are represented by the protagonist (i.e. the audience) experiencing a wide range of philosophical quandaries: he (or she) first encounters death at a funeral, prompting the question of life after death. This is followed in the second movement by a state of reflection to happier and more joyous times in days past, while the third movement quite frustratingly questions the purpose of a life represented by “meaningless activity" (a sort of piquant cynicism best understood by young twenty-somethings first encountering the [late] works of Tolstoy or Samuel Beckett).

The first three movements, as performed on March 4th, 1895, and indeed, the 'complete 2nd',' following a rather dismal critical reception, would go on to become one of the present era's most beloved and frequently performed symphonies of the Mahler repertoire.

Listen below to the first three movements* of Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony (this video features
maestro Claudio Abbado at the conducting helm. It would be through this performance with the
European Community Youth Orchestra that Abbado would achieve international renown and find 
his niche in the works of Gustav Mahler).

*start time - 49:00

Compositional History / Later Editions (and Additions):

The first three movements that were performed at the premiere in Vienna were composed between 1888 and 1893. Mahler procrastinated for roughly a year before completing the symphony, with the full intention to add to the work a vocal score that was both personally significant, philosophically and spiritually poignant, and, most crucially for the composer, the addition(s) had to be original and avoid drawing comparison to the music of contemporaries. Mahler's inspiration for the symphony's finale would unwittingly present itself one year later: drawing on a hymn sung at von Bülow's funeral (a choral setting of German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s "Resurrection"), Mahler would employ the themes of redemption, release and “renewal” to the work, later adding the gooseflesh-inducing aria,^[1] "Urlicht," which would serve as the Symphony’s penultimate - and most majestic – movement, representing “release” from a life filled with vacuous trivialities, ultimately culminating in further reflection, a sense of acceptance, and a spirited yearning for renewal in the fifth and final movement.

The exquisite "Urlicht" from Mahler's 2nd Symphony. This, the works penultimate
[fourth] movement presents both a stillness and a yearning that is as earthly
transcendent as it is heavenly majestic. The Urlicht, along with the Symphony's final
movement were later additions to the work, and although both were complete one year
prior to March of 1895, neither would be performed at the premiere. It is showcased
here merely to share with the reader the sublime beauty of the piece. The clip below is
sung by English contralto Norma Procter. I am fully aware it is de rigueur amongst
classical music elite to favor Abbado's version with dramatic soprano Jessye Norman -
which itself could melt glaciers at Mach 1 speed - but it was in the contralto voice of
Procter that I first fell in love with this piece. 


Footnotes:

^[1]in some regards the use of the term "aria" commonly employed to describe the Urlicht is misleading. The 'song' in question is really more of a Lied - one that has been enhanced by a backing orchestra.

-Rose.

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DID YOU MISS THE LIVE SHOSTAKOVICH PREMIERES ON JULY 5? VIDEO OF RECITAL AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR A LIMITED TIME

If you missed out on the live, transcontinental stream of this year's International Shostakovich Days Festival (Gohrisch), you will still have the opportunity to watch a portion of the unique concert online from now through 21 October 2020.

Unable to view the video? See update below.

The unusual recital saw Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva (winner of the Chopin Piano Competition 2010) perform on a Hamburg Steinway from the Hotel Albrechtshof in Gohrisch (the very same location where Shostakovich composed his eighth string quartet in 1960), where she "joined," via the world wide web, the great piano virtuoso Daniil Trifonov, who performed on his Fazioli from the music room in his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The pair were also "joined" in Moscow by the 2015 winner of the city's quadrennial Tchaikovsky Competition, Dmitry Masleev, who performed live from the Russian capital's Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.

Together, the trio of musicians performed two known works by Shostakovich (the piano sonata no. 1, and the short piano piece "In the Forest"^[1]) and premiered ten newly discovered short piano pieces by the composer which had been recently unearthed in the Shostakovich Archives in Moscow by Russian musicologist Olga Digonskaya.

The works premiered are by and large juvenilia pieces from Shostakovich's pre-teen and adolescent years, composed from as early as age 12 - some of which are eerily reminiscent of Chopin.

Whilst Trifonov's recording of the event is no longer available for free public viewing online, music lovers may still watch the performances of both Avdeeva and Masleev (seen above, and available via the links provided below).

The virtual recital replaced this year's International Shostakovich Days Festival at Gohrisch (just outside of Dresden, Germany) which had to regroup online due to restrictions resulting from the ongoing pandemic.

The program seen above, with timestamps: (* = world premiere)

Yulianna Avdeeva (from Gohrisch, Hotel Albrechtshof)
Piano Sonata No. 1 op. 12 (1:06)

Dmitry Masleev (from Moscow, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall)
Composed in 1934:
Drei Fugen (Three Fugues) o. op.* (15:16)

Piano pieces from the years 1918-1920:
Trauermarsch im Gedenken an die Opfer der Revolution (Funeral March in Memory of the Victims of the Revolution)* (21:46)
Nostalgie* (23:12)
Stück in C-Dur* (25:56)
Präludium-Marsch* (29:36)
Bagatelle* (32:02)
Drei Stücke: Menuett – Präludium – Intermezzo* (33:14)
Im Wald (In the Forest) (35:16)

Composed in 1921:
Scherzo op. 1a* (36:59)

Yulianna Avdeeva (from Gohrisch, Hotel Albrechtshof)
Präludium und Fuge cis-Moll* (from a sketch/draft of a Prelude in C Sharp Minor, believed to have been written for the cycle of Preludes and Fugues op 87. Prelude completed by / fugue composed by Krzysztof Meyer) (43:09)

For further information on this event, visit ARTE and Shostakovich Festival Gohrisch.

UPDATE - 7 August 2020: The above recital has now entered "country-blocked" status. If you are unable to view the video, you may still access Dmitry Masleev's performance on YouTube (seen below), with a minor order change, beginning with Im Wald (and omitting the Three Fugues and the Scherzo, which have been uploaded to separate videos: Click here for Drei Fugen and here for the Scherzo).



Timestamps: 
 
00:00 In the forest (Im Wald)
01:43 Funeral March in the Memory of the Victims of the Revolution*
03:11 Nostalgia*
05:53 Piece in C-Major*
09:34 Prelude-March*
12:00 Bagatelle*

3 pieces (Drei Stücke)*
13:13 Minuet
13:55 Prelude
14:39 Intermezzo

Three Fugues (Drei Fugen) o. op.* (video link)

Scherzo op. 1a* (video link)

Yulianna's performance from the event (of the Piano Sonata no. 1 only) is likewise available on the platform. View it here.


Footnote:

^[1]"Im Wald", performed by Masleev, received its premiere during last year's festival at Gohrisch (on 22 June 2019) by 2017 Arthur Rubinstein silver medalist Daniel Ciobanu. The short piano piece is yet another work from Shostakovich's youth, having been composed in 1919 at the age of 13.

-Rose.

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CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA: THE MAYHEM BEHIND THE MUSIC

This thoroughly unflattering depiction of a screeching
viking-esque soprano may have it's origins in an early
production of Richard Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, 
a mammoth four part opera cycle featuring the
character of Brünnhilde, a sheild-maiden and Valkyrie
of Norse mythology. Wagner's productions were
notoriously behemoth in scope, and it is from these factors
that the legend of an equally robust performer belting out
stratospherically rotund arias likely first 
attracted critics of the composer, and eventually, of the 
art form of Opera itself.

Have a friend who thinks Opera is nothing but prim and proper ladies and stuffy old louts watching overweight Primadonnas bound about the stage in nothing but breast armor and Viking caps?

Show them that both performers and creators in the world of Opera (and indeed, it's audiences) can get just as down and dirty with the rest of them as we remove the pomp from the circumstance with these salacious tales of Mayhem Behind The Music.

Below you will find a cornucopia of anecdotal tales of yore interspersed with comical musings, mishaps and superstitions, snarky commentary (courtesy of competitive composers whose behavior is anything but proper), and for good measure, a fair share of drunkards, playboys and murderesses.

We begin backstage, at an unnamed theatre’s production of Bellini’s Norma, an tragedia lirica consisting of an ill-fated Druid-Roman romance - one that was now tempting the gods with an offering of opera buffa for the course. 


This delightfully comical anecdote was regaled in author Stephen Tanner’s Opera Antics and Anecdotes:

A caricature of Falstaff

“One hour before curtain time the 230-pound soprano for Norma cancelled. Her slim, trim sub was hurriedly escorted to the makeup and costume departments, where it turned out her costume had vanished. The only costume available was that of the 230-pounder designed by Omar the Tentmaker. It was six sizes too large and particularly baggy in the chest area. Since needle and thread and safety pins couldn't do the chest job, the costume lady shouted at the sub, "Go as fast as you can up to the prop room and ask for prop number 77, shove it down the top of your dress, and scamper back here as fast as you can. It's curtain time in ten minutes!" Minutes later, the soprano was back, out of breath and looking very unhappy, a large piece of sponge rubber stuck out of her dress, bulging up under her chin. "Oh, my God!" screamed the costume lady, "I said prop 77, not 79! That's Falstaff's behind!"

Fans of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote will enjoy the following anecdote as re-told by Hugh Vickers in his hilarious book Great Operatic Disasters. Cervantes' enthusiasts are sure to remember a certain squire Sancho suffering a similar fate in the celebrated Spanish classic:

Vickers' humorous depiction of the
bounding soprano as illustrated
in Great Operatic Disasters.

"This catastrophe is - delightfully - due entirely to ill-will, in this case between the stage staff & the soprano. With diabolical cunning, they permitted her, after several stormy rehearsals, to complete her first performance without mishap until the very last moment, when Tosca throws herself off the battlements of the Castel Sant'Angelo. What normally happens is that on her cry, 'O Scarpia, davanti a Dio' she hurls herself off & lands on a mattress four feet below (who but Callas has ever looked totally convincing at that moment? - Her outstretched hands haunt the memory). But in this case it was not Callas but a large young American who landed, not on a mattress, but - perish the thought - on a trampoline. It is said that she came up fifteen times before the curtain fell - sometimes upside down, then the right way up - now laughing in delirious glee, now screaming with rage ... Worse still, it seems that the unhappy lady was unable to reappear in any other Opera Center performance throughout the entire season because the Center's faithful audience, remembering the trampoline, would have burst into laughter. She had to remove herself to San Francisco, where of course no such grotesque incident could possibly occur."

Stravinsky's premiere production of Le Sacre du Printemps was
notoriously chaotic to the point of violence. Police had to be
called to break up the many brawls that broke out amongst
audience members who were so thoroughly enraged
with the Composer, his choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, and with
eachother. It was an evening Parisian society would not
soon forget.

Such comical catastrophes were not exclusive only to performers of the Classical arts, but also to their patrons. We all remember hearing about the May 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, dubbed by the press as the ‘Riot at the Rite’ (and as regaled here on unravelingmusicalmyths in my post on the notoriously chaotic premiere) - but, beyond the cat-calls, hissing and throwing of veggies (and fists), you may not have heard about a particular audience member, who was so riled up by the shocking performance and it’s jarring rhythms, that journalist Carl van Vechten would report being made the personal timpani of said audience member, who  

“began to beat rhythmically on top of my head!”

Now that is one way to offer a unique critique - a scathing commentary on music deemed garrulous and uncouth, unfit for Parisian upper-crust society - and all of it offered without ever having to utter a word! Quite unlike the following composers, who took competition to a very dark place - mud-slinging at contemporary musicians with the skill of a discus-hurling Olympian:

Perhaps in an effort to beat would-be critics to the punch, the following musicians dabbled in the art of self-deprecation (of the hilarious variety):

Conductor extraordinaire and my personal maestro preferito would, true to his reputation as an uncharacteristically insecure recluse for someone of such genius, pen the following discourse on what I like to call "talent-dysmorphia" in a rare series of letters to a then-budding conductor Charles Barber (as printed in Barbers’ Corresponding with Carlos:)

My most loved conductor, Carlos Kleiber.

“I am sorry to say: I hardly conduct at all; so that would mean you would be totally hors d’oeuvre (out of work) and horrified at my lack of interest, energy, initiative, and so forth … I’m a real mess, actually. Don’t tell anyone, please.”

Yours Sincerely
Carlos Kleiber

Speaking of erroneous quotes and letters, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was famous for his correspondence with family and friends. In the quote below, a young Mozart shares with his bride Constanze, the beast hiding within his usually comical exterior:

Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would, throughout the course of his travels and career,
pen many letters, which, as we will see further down in this post, showcased a very boy-like and
somewhat crude personality and sense of humor.

and who could forget Johann Sebastian Bach, who famously declared: 

It is obvious to any fan of the Classical genre that such displays of self-inflicted aspersions were entirely disproportionate to the talents of the above mentioned artists. A little humility, however, often does go a long way - and for the likes of Kleiber, Bach and Mozart, posterity has seen to it that such displays of self-deprecation are no match for the astounding oeuvres put forth by each artist, rendering any such commentary as the ramblings of an ingenious eccentric.

While we are on the topic of humility, as the old colloquial expression states: "A little humility could have been precisely what the doctor ordered" rings true for the following singers, who proved to be a tad too big for their britches:

We begin with the Serbian mezzo-soprano Dragana Jugovic, the so-called “Drunk Carmen”, who, to the horror of tenor Alexei Steblianko, and indeed the entire attending audience at a concert performance featuring the works of French composer Georges Bizet, had a little too much to drink before curtain call and wound up slurring and swaying her way though a rendition of the final duet "C'est Toi!" from Bizet’s famously recitative-infused opera Carmen, with a shrieking vocal ability ghastly enough to shatter glass. Whoever said “the show must go on without exception" clearly never saw this:



..and who could forget the American socialite Florence Foster Jenkins, who was so impressed by her vocal gifts that she once proclaimed to a taxi driver following a near fatal collision that her screaming upon impact was an offering from the heavens, sending him a letter of thanks for improving her “high C’s!” Whether Ms. Jenkins was aware of the mockery made of her seemingly oblivious ability to sing in key or hold a note, or perhaps, just didn’t care, it didn't stop the ever-wobbly soprano from using the funds obtained from an inheritance given to her by her late father to establish ‘The Verdi Club’, using her new-found fortune and status to mingle in musical circles. Jenkins did indeed see notoriety in her lifetime - as an object of satire and jest.

"Murder on the High C's": a
Florence Foster Jenkins Production.

Posterity has been no kinder to the unobservant soprano: a posthumous album would be released with the aptly (and hilariously) named title of “Murder on the High C’s”.

The most familiar source of mockery when it comes to Florence Foster Jenkins was her horrifying rendition of Mozart’s "Der Hölle Rache” from Die Zauberflote, widely considered to date to be one of opera’s most difficult and demanding arias, and is certainly not for the faint-of-heart performer. Jenkins, however, believed she had it nailed:




Compare Foster Jenkins (at left), with virtuosic coloratura Queen (and my personal favorite in this
role) Cristina Deutekom (at right).
 

It is difficult, in today’s social-media infused world, to imagine any performer with the - gifts? - of Foster-Jenkins living in such thoroughly oblivious bliss.

Even the most adroit modern performer has a rough night or two. Depending on where the performance is taking place, audiences range from the (usually) kind and appreciative to downright crass and castrating (as can be commonly witnessed amongst patrons of the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan).

It was here that tenor Roberto Alagna lost his composure after being heckled by the audience following a slightly overabundant use of vibrato. The cumbersome audience, erupting in a well-timed chorus of boos was astonished when Alagna responded to the vocal critics by serving them with a heaping portion of their just desserts. In a display of overabundant confidence (and perhaps a soupçon of cockiness) Alagna satisfied the secret wishes of sopranos and tenors everywhere who had also suffered the diminutive hissing of the audience at La Scala when he defiantly held up his fist high in the air, delivering a mocking shake - a gesture that could easily be deconstructed to express the sentiment “screw you!” before he angrily stormed off the stage. It was a grand gesture, and an even grander exit - well, at least it would have been: the flustered Alagna, so caught up in rage - had stormed off to the wrong side of the stage! In what could only be described as in a state of utter mortification, the disgraced tenor had to do an abrupt-foot: turning a full 180 as he sulkingly marched off to the exit at stage right.

Talk about a walk of shame!



Things weren’t always fun and games for fellow singers or the composers that inspired them.

Below you will find a series of superstitions, obsessive compulsions and so-called ‘carnal sins’ that are so salacious they alone could be the basis of a tragedie lyrique themselves:

SUPERSTITIONS:

Luciano Pavarotti and his handkerchief

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti was well known for his powerful vocal prowess and captivating stage presence. So adept at his craft was Luciano, that few were aware the behemoth legend suffered from an almost crippling case of stage-fright that would endure until the end of his operatic career. In an effort to combat this, Pavarotti is said to have clutched a handkerchief in his hands during his solo performances, which he would use as a tension ball during his high notes!

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was also plagued by stage fright, and would take excessive measures to try to temper his frazzled nerves. It is believed the composer (and sometime conductor) would only conduct with his right hand - his left hand was to be designated for his chin, which he would hold “propped up” in the fear that his head would “fall sideways” during one of his terror-induced dizzy spells (some autobiographies on the composer take this one step further, suggesting Tchaikovsky was trying to prevent his head from falling completely off!)

Niccolò Paganini: the soul-less virutoso

Not to be outdone by the superstitious measures of operatic successors Tchaikovsky and Pavarotti, a prolific violinist and composer living in the late 18th and 19th century by the name of Niccolò Paganini stirred up a witch’s brew of superstition of a whole different sort, when he took a page from Goethe’s epic masterpiece Faust, and convinced an entire audience that he had “sold his soul to the devil” in exchange for his virtuosic gifts.

Well tuned to the gossip of Italy’s elite patrons of classical music, Paganini would take to his violin prior to each sell-out performance, sawing into three of it's four strings - not too far - just enough for the gifted violinist to make it partway through a performance before the sabotaged strings would snap under the pressure of the bow - at which point the devious musician would finish the tune on one string, much to the appeasement of an already impressed audience.
Needless to say, Paganini made a pretty penny as a travelling supernatural performer.

Five years following the death of Paganini, the superstitious fans of the late violinist, who were prone to fits of fainting and bouts of extended reverie would find themselves overshadowed by another group of superstitious Neapolitans. 

Verdi, according to a group of Neapolitan
occultists, may have been victim of the
cursèd "Evil Eye".

The fanatical group in question would serve, collectively, as unofficial bodyguard to Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, when, following a disastrous debut of his early opera Alzira, local admirers of the composer deemed the work to have been cursed. So protective was this group of mugumbo dissenters, Verdi would find himself stalked (and close to the heel, at that) by the group, who would appear while the composer went out to dine, at performances he’d attend or conduct - even at his private residence.

Growing increasingly frustrated at his lack of privacy, Verdi is alleged to have inquired of this single-cell ameoba exactly what their end-game was. Much to his surprise, the small operatic militia revealed a theory of fantastical proportions: Alzira, it seems, had been afflicted with the “Evil Eye” - a curse inflicted upon the opera and it’s composer by a jealous rival, musician Vincenzo Capecelatro at it's backstage premiere by shaking his rival’s hands before curtain call. The malocchio, it was believed, would manifest itself on any future compositions of the cursed composer should Capecelatro make it a point to attend the performances. Acting as an unofficial bodyguard service to Verdi, the fanatical group would see to it that such an occurrence never happened. As ludicrous as Verdi found these superstitions, a series of coincidental events would seem to give the group a shading of clout, when, at a different premiere, the attending audience found themselves on their feet in ovation, such was their pleasure at Verdi’s latest production. Suddenly, and without warning, the composer found himself being bear-hugged from behind by a mysterious stranger. The ‘attack’ was so sudden, the startled composer jumped back several paces before turning to face the man who had so surprised him with such an abrupt embrace: it was none other than Capecelatro! At that precise moment, a not-insignificant sized piece of the set broke off and came hurtling toward the stage, crash-landing at the exact spot Verdi had just leapt from!

One can only imagine what the bodyguards thought - and what Verdi himself must have thought at surviving such a close call.

The above mentioned tales of calamity are but just the tip of the monumentally chaotic mountain that is classical music. From composers shying away from authoring or composing (as in the case of Franz Schubert) a ‘ninth symphony’ in fears of joining the so-called ‘curse of the ninth club’ (one in which famous composers such as Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Beethoven fell victim to unexpected and untimely deaths at or after composing a ninth symphony), to the playboy adventures of baroque men-about-town like composers Jean-Marie LeClair and Alessandro Stradella, each of whom are believed to have been murdered by former lovers and scorned wives.

Then there are the composers who just missed utter catastrophe, such as in the case of French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz, who narrowly escaped a suicide attempt following the rejection of his current idée-fixe, a young doyenne named Camile, who had begun an affair with another in the period during her infatuated boyfriend’s absence (Berlioz was off to study in Rome, leaving his ladylove back in Paris).

The eccentric Hector Berlioz was a
known proponent and fan of the
psychedelic effects of Opium, and
would compose the 'Symphonie
Fantastique' (arguably his best work)
under it's influence.

So infuriated was Hector when he caught wind of the philanderers, it is said the obsessed composer set out to orchestrate a murder-suicide! Berlioz dressed himself in drag and boarded a train home, his fully loaded pistol in hand (or, in purse). It seems the frazzled Casanova had composed himself on the long ride home - at least enough to call off the murder. He presently had a solution for his still bereaved heart: he would drown himself by jumping abandonely into the Mediterranean Ocean. Fortunately for the annals of music history, he was quickly recovered from the chilly waters. Berlioz was no stranger to such obsessions of the heart - he would later (somewhat more successfully) attempt to lure into his romantic graces another young coquette by composing an entire symphony for his latest idée-fixe: one Harriet Smithson, who he wooed with a nearly fifty minute ode to his unyielding affections, complete with a deranged scene of Witches celebrating a dark Sabbath. It is believed the high strung Berlioz composed the work under the influence of Opium.

The castrato that never was:
Joseph Haydn.

Internationally renowned composer Joseph Haydn would himself avert catastrophe, when he, as a young virtuosic soprano (now commonly known as a treble) was approached by the church in which he performed with an offering of castration - a practice not uncommon in 18th century Italy, where the vocal agility of the young male soprano was so highly prized many a young boy would endure the procedure to ensure an ever-lasting high range that would endure throughout adulthood). It seems no one had bothered to ask his father, who quickly prohibited the procedure as soon as he caught wind of it.




I will end this post, which could take up an entire website (so numerous are such comic reliefs and tales of woe in the world of Opera and Classical Music) by leaving the reader with the following gems:

MOZART’S FILTHY MIND:

Mozart’s letters, considered so vulgar they had to be censored at first publication (and this is not to be taken as merely a sign of conservative times - some of the content contained in the composer’s correspondence is so graphic and vulgar, I hesitate to relay them even here! Let’s just say, ‘Wolfie’ had a penchant for humor of the scatological sort - once penning a letter to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart in which he describes, in explicit detail, a want to relieve himself of certain bodily functions on the face of his "Cozz Buzz” (a nickname Mozart employed for his favorite cousin). I will leave it to the reader to use his or her imagination. Such commentary by Mozart was rampant in his many letters, and was a humor shared even by his mother, who was no prude herself to risquée comedy!

(To read more about Mozart's dirty ditties, check out my post on Wolfgang here).


COMEDIAN & CELEBRATED PIANIST VICTOR BORGE'S HILARIOUS 'PRODUCTIONS':
This talented comedian had an especially delicious knack for stripping from the world of Opera it’s pretentious reputation:



PAUL DRAYTON’S COMICAL (& QUITE APT) DISPLAY OF THE EGOISTIC COMPOSERS OF YORE - AS SUNG BY BRITISH A CAPELLA TROUPE ‘THE KING’S SINGERS’:



-Rose.

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