Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto Program Notes 

 Program Notes by Laurie Shulman © 2024. Reproduction of all or part of these notes without explicit written permission from the Jacksonville Symphony is strictly prohibited.  

Brittany J. Green’s TESTIFY! (Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program World Premiere)    

World Premiere September 27, 2024; Jacksonville, Florida 
8 Minutes 

“Many of my earliest musical memories are from the church. As a young girl, I was always enamored by the rhythms of instruments and bodies sounding and moving in jubilation and perfect harmony. I remember watching Mama – a self-proclaimed “non-musician” – work her way around a tambourine, making it dance and sing like magic. Watching her, I would get lost in the sizzle of the jingles and the glistening light that would shimmer off them and onto the pew as she played. Mama made the impossible happen every day of the week – Sunday was no exception – and when she plays the tambourine, even to this day, I feel like I’m in a whirlwind of sound and technicolor. For me, it’s a little slice of heaven on Earth. TESTIFY! is inspired by this feeling. Built off of rhythmic patterns from Mama’s tambourine playing and the hymn ‘I’m So Glad,’ this piece is a kaleidoscope of sounds I hold dear” (Brittany J. Green).  

TESTIFY! was commissioned by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, an initiative of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra. World premiere given by the Jacksonville Symphony and Music Director Courtney Lewis. 

 

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18  

World Premiere November 9, 1901; Moscow, Russia
39 Minutes  

• Sergei Rachmaninoff’s career straddled the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Austro-Germanic tradition prevails in his symphonies and concertos.
• He was one of the most gifted composer-pianists of his age.
• Rachmaninoff lived primarily in the United States after leaving Russia in 1918.
• Late in his life, Vladimir Horowitz, celebrated pianist, was one of his neighbors in Beverly Hills.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s music is steeped in the post-romanticism of the late 19th century. The rapturous Second Concerto is technically a 20th century work – he composed it in 1900 and 1901 – but its harmony, texture and emotional sweep are quintessentially romantic indeed. It overflows with melodies so memorable that they became popular songs. “I Think of You” is based on the second theme of the opening movement, and “Full Moon and Empty Arms” adapts the second theme of the finale. Passion and sumptuous harmonies enrich this music. The Second Concerto proved to be a breakthrough work that catapulted Rachmaninoff to international success as a composer and pianist.   

 

Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Op. 40  

World Premiere March 3, 1899; Frankfurt, Germany 
40 Minutes  

• Like Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss’ life spanned both the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Also like Rachmaninoff, Strauss maintained late romantic, musical language in his works.
• Early in his career, he favored large orchestral tone poems.
• After 1900, he focused largely on writing operas.
• Through his mother, Strauss was a descendant of the Hacker-Pschorr brewing dynasty.
• His wife, the soprano Pauline de Ahna, was the muse for many of his songs and at least one of his operas.

Former New York Times music critic Bernard Holland once wrote, “There is a kind of exalted vulgarity in Strauss’ tone poems; they are a guilty enjoyment.” 

Guilty as charged. So are we all, for loving this deliciously decadent music, which persuades through the power of excess. Ein Heldenleben has been praised as the proudest of Strauss’ compositions for orchestra. How strange to think of a young man of 34 reflecting back on a lifetime of accomplishment already so rich, as if his career were drawing to a close. In fact, all of Strauss’ great operas lay in the future. He would live another half-century after composing Ein Heldenleben.  

The piece is one enormous movement that subdivides into six major sections. How does one bring coherence to a single 40-minute movement? Certain aspects of Ein Heldenleben are related to sonata form, for example, the two principal contrasting themes. The strong, masculine horn theme represents the hero. That music contrasts with the feminine “companion” theme, stated by solo violin, which reflects every facet of his wife’s personality. Separating these two musical ideas is a transitional passage associated with the hero’s adversaries, which in Strauss’ case means the critics. He portrayed them as mean-spirited and despicable. 

Romain Rolland, the eminent French critic and one of Strauss’ close friends, called Ein Heldenleben‘s “Deeds of War” section “the most admirable battle ever portrayed in music.” Its position within the whole functions as a dramatic and musical development. Similarly, the ensuing “works of peace” section is a sort of recapitulation episode. Finally, this monumental work closes with the hero’s release from the world, in a grand, cathartic coda. 

Whether we hear this work as bombastic or an autobiography, we must admire Strauss’ superb command of the orchestra. Whatever mood he endeavors to express, he finds the ideal timbres and colors to deliver it.  

 

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 

Sergei Rachmaninoff 

Born April 1, 1873, in Oneg, Novgorod district, Russia · Died March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California  

 

The opening of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is one of the marvels of classical literature. With no orchestral preparation, the pianist plays a series of quiet chords in F minor, alternating with a low F in the most sepulchral region of the keyboard. Seven times we hear the chord, each time with a slightly different harmony and another response from that low F. Each time the exchange takes place, the volume increases slightly. The eighth time, now quite loudly, the pianist thunders another big chord, then three portentous notes leading to a decisive landing on C. It is the first time Rachmaninoff has tipped his hand that his concerto is in C minor, the advertised key. His opening ploy has been a red herring, teasing us, building suspense, putting us on the edge of our seats, waiting for a door to slam, a shoe to drop – or a rocket to blast off. 

Takeoff, as it happens, is immediate. The piano is off and running in a swirling of arpeggios. The orchestra, hitherto silent, plunges in with the passionate first theme, and the tapestry of Rachmaninoff’s music comes into focus. His remarkable opening is one of the most dramatic and original in the concerted literature. That simple, eight-bar piano introduction throws down a gauntlet, declaring the soloist’s hegemony over the orchestra, yet paradoxically indicating its codependence. Rachmaninoff requires the orchestra to anchor the home tonality and the principal theme, thereby providing the framework for the pianist’s activity. 

The relationship between piano and orchestra in this concerto is unusual. Throughout the work, Rachmaninoff entrusts most of the melodies to the large ensemble, while the piano takes a decorative, textural role. Keyboard provides lush embroidery for the dense fabric of the music. No transparent muslin or sturdy denim here. Rachmaninoff’s luxuriant materials are velvet, satin brocade, silk moiré and ermine trimming. 

By the skin of its teeth, the Second Concerto is a 20th-century work. Rachmaninoff composed the second and third movements in 1900, adding the first movement in 1901. For practical purposes, however, this is a late Romantic concerto in the tradition of the 19th-century virtuoso. What distinguishes it from dozens of less stellar late Romantic concerti is the glorious piano writing and Rachmaninoff’s increased skill in handling orchestral resources. He also strikes a fine balance between Russian gloom and rhapsodic ecstasy. It is little wonder that so many popular songs of the 1930s and 1940s were based on this concerto’s themes. 

This concerto was a breakthrough work for Rachmaninoff on two levels. The first was a break from the past. The Second Concerto marked his emergence from a deep depression that had gripped him for three years, following the disastrous premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (see sidebar, Hypnosis on holiday). The second level looked to the future: this work boosted Rachmaninoff’s international reputation as a master of the concerto. It affirmed his genius to a broad public.  

Hypnosis on holiday  

Early in 1900, Rachmaninoff traveled to Yalta in the Southern Crimea. He had been sent there by his family, who were concerned by his prolonged disinterest in composition following the failure of his First Symphony in 1897. A mild climate made Yalta a preferred destination for well-heeled artists eager to escape the bitter Russian winter. The resort was frequented by Russia’s cultural elite and boasted a particularly strong coterie of theatrical types. Residents included the director Konstantin Stanislavsky, the playwright Anton Chekhov, the romantic realist author Maxim Gorky and the composer Vasily Kalinnikov. Rachmaninoff’s traveling companion was the Russian operatic bass Feodor Chaliapin. 

The Yalta trip included treatment from Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a specialist in behavioral hypnosis who was also an enthusiastic amateur cellist with a broad knowledge of music. He had previously treated one of Rachmaninoff’s aunts with great success. Rachmaninoff liked Dr. Dahl, enjoyed his discussions with him and responded well to their sessions (he later acknowledged to friends that a promise he had made to London’s Philharmonic Society for a new concerto also spurred him to recovery). 

Another change of scenery occurred when Chaliapin was invited to sing in Arrigo Boito’s opera Mefistofele at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. The bass invited Rachmaninoff to accompany him to Italy. Chaliapin had rented a house for June and July on the Ligurian coast north of Genoa. After six months away from home, Rachmaninoff had begun to pine for his family. Nevertheless, he had broken through depression and writer’s block. At the villa in Varazze, near San Remo, he resumed composing and began the Second Concerto.  

When he returned to Russia in August 1900, the second and third movements were complete. He performed them in December at a charity concert, adding the first movement in spring 1901. He played the new concerto in its entirety in November 1901; his friend Alexander Siloti conducted. The performance was a triumph, and the Second Concerto has been a mainstay of the literature ever since. When it was published, Rachmaninoff included a dedication to Dr. Nikolai Dahl.  

Instrumentation: Rachmaninoff scored the concerto for woodwinds and trumpets in pairs, four horns, three trombones, tuba, timpani, solo piano and strings. 

 

A Hero’s Life (Ein Heldenleben), Op. 40 

Richard Strauss 

Born April 1, 1873, in Oneg, Novgorod District, Russia · Died March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills 

 

 Strauss’ Eroica? or his autobiography? 

E-flat major is the heroic key in music. As such, its roots are usually traced to Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, but in fact, they stretch back even further than Beethoven, at least to the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of The Magic Flute and the 39th Symphony. Strauss chose deliberately when he set Ein Heldenleben, the last of his great tone poems, in E-flat. He wanted the associations with nobility of spirit and action. If there was any doubt about his intentions in this enormous work, whose title means “a hero’s life” in German, Strauss dispelled it with his aggressive, assertive and huge brass section. He wrote to a friend that he was scoring Ein Heldenleben for so many horns because they were a “yardstick of heroism.”   

Strauss intended Ein Heldenleben to be an illustration of his obstacles removed, of his achievements and triumphs. He demurred at acknowledging Ein Heldenleben as an autobiographical work when he wrote it, insisting that the tone poem illustrated “not a single poetical or historical figure but rather a more general and free ideal of great and manly heroism.” Strauss’ obsession with the noble hero is also a direct outgrowth of Wagnerian philosophy.   

The piece is one enormous movement that subdivides into six major sections: 

1. The Hero
2. The Hero’s Adversaries 
3. The Hero’s Companion 
4. The Hero’s Deeds of War
5. The Hero’s Works of Peace
6. The Hero’s Retirement and Fulfillment

Strauss’ printed score reflects none of these titles; all the programmatic information associated with these sections is gleaned from the composer’s letters and remarks to friends. 

How does one bring coherence to a single 40-minute movement? Certain aspects of Ein Heldenleben are related to sonata form, for example, the two principal contrasting themes. The strong, masculine horn theme represents the hero. That music contrasts with the feminine “companion” theme, stated by solo violin, which reflects every facet of his wife’s personality (the violin solo, incidentally, is exceedingly taxing for the concertmaster, amounting to several solo cadenzas). Separating these two musical ideas is a transitional passage associated with the hero’s adversaries, which in Strauss’ case means the critics. Both Austrian and German music critics were, by and large, very favorable to Strauss. It remains something of a mystery why he portrayed them as so mean-spirited and despicable. 

Whether we hear this work as bombastic or an autobiography, we must admire Strauss’ superb command of the orchestra. As George Marek has noted: 

His zest for life, his virile vitality, his being unafraid to sing a song of long breath, his erotic force, which is never turned aside by embarrassment and finally, the ability to handle the huge orchestra, squeezing from it all the richness of its tonal resources, an ability so sure that he seems like a modern-day Cagliostro – all these are found in this, the last of the great tone poems. 

Instrumentation: Strauss scored Ein Heldenleben for an expanded orchestra comprising three flutes plus piccolo, four oboes (4th doubling English horn), an E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, tenor tuba, bass tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, small snare drum, tenor drum, two harps and strings. The score specifies 16 first violins, 16 seconds, 12 violas, 12 celli and eight double basses.