On 15 March 1897 Rachmaninov attended the premiere of his
Symphony
No.1 - his largest orchestral work to date and one in which he had
invested much time, energy and emotion. The catastrophe of that first
performance is well known and the lasting impact on the composer life-long.
Indeed he came to regard the work at best as requiring drastic revision and
at worst destruction or at least an embargo on it ever being played again.
The manuscript score remains lost and it was assumed the music would never
be heard again until a set of parts were discovered in the library of
Leningrad Conservatoire two years after the composer's death. From
this a new score was reconstructed and the second performance given in 1945.
Critical opinion will still tell you that this is an uneven and occasionally
crude work. That may be true, but I would suggest
if the symphony
had been revised we would now be revisiting the "original" score
and marvelling at the confident, dramatic handling of both orchestra and
musical material that this version contains. Rachmaninov was just 24 when
this work made its debut and it remains one of the most interesting and
novel of Russian Romantic Symphonies - musical warts and all.
History has been kinder on the work than the critics at the first
performance. The catalogue contains numerous performances many of which are
very fine. So many and of such quality that it does beg the question if we
need another version. This is the first Rachmaninov disc from Dmitrij
Kitajenko and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln of which he has been honorary
conductor since 2009. Since this combination have produced for Oehms cycles
of the complete Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky symphonies I suspect
this represents volume 1 of another cycle. I have to say I like
Kitajenko's conducting. He is more interventionist than many
contemporary conductors and the choices he makes are always interesting and
challenging even if occasionally they can seem wilful.
One of the latter-day critiques of this symphony is that there are poorly
handled passages in the middle movements particularly. Geoffrey Norris in
the volume on the composer in the Dent Master Musicians series writes of
"serious longueurs" and "rambling repetitions" and he
mentions a composer(?) sanctioned cut of 36 bars. Some modern performances
have sought to counter this by adopting flowing and even fast tempi. Famous
- possibly infamous depending on your reaction to Soviet brass playing - is
Svetlanov's coruscating performance with the USSR Symphony Orchestra.
He makes a positive virtue out of the primary-colour orchestration and
red-blooded emotionalism of the music. Likewise, Ashkenazy for Decca with
the Concertgebouw produces a performance a good five minutes quicker - more
fluent is probably a better term - than Kitajenko.
Kitajenko's approach is probably best characterised as Epic/Heroic.
He does not shirk opportunities to drive the music forward but just at
moments where lingering might seem counter-productive he is willing to slow
right down to near stasis. The fact that this works at all is due to the
superb control and poise of his German players and the excellence of the
Oehms recording which is the perfect balance of rich and detailed. They
orchestra respond to his direction with beautifully nuanced playing; gently
expressive phrasing from wind and strings alike. All of this is based on a
typically Germanic orchestral tone that is built upon a wonderfully rich and
firm bass line and brass that can speak with a thrillingly burnished well
balanced tone. This choral quality is especially apt in this work where so
much of the primary material is based upon Russian liturgical chants. This
is clear in the very opening bars where after an initial ornamented turn the
full orchestra intones one such chant that proves to be a building block for
much to come. The swaying second subject written in a subtly ambiguous 7/4
meno mosso is yearningly beautiful in Kitajenko's hands and
he very skilfully links this to the following
ff outburst by
pulling back on that dynamic. Svetlanov offers neither the subtlety of 7/4
phrasing nor the sense of continuum into the unison
ff. Instead we
get a volcanic eruption of string tone which I absolutely adore. Perhaps,
just perhaps, Kitajenko is playing a longer and certainly subtler game -
indeed one that looks ahead to later Rachmaninov works. Kitajenko's
individual movement timings are not particularly slow - Ashkenazy is the
exception by his speed rather than the other way around. The climax of the
movement, technically, musically and emotionally is the
maestoso
section after figure 8 - the 1947 first edition of the score can be followed
on IMSLP - where the heavy brass intone an extended chant over fanfaring
brass, cutting string pizzicati and dancing woodwind. It's an
exhilarating passage and one that proves just what an inspired writer for
the orchestra Rachmaninov could be even at this early age. This same passage
highlights the question of editions with this work - or to be more specific
the use of percussion. The score was recreated from parts and there is a
question about how much of the percussion scoring should be included. The
1947 edition on IMSLP contains the least percussion. Some recordings seemed
to have followed this version. So Svetlanov, Maazel and Jansons are
percussively 'bare' here. After that it seems almost a case of
individual conductor taste. Previn and Kocsis add a glockenspiel doubling
the dancing wind. Kitajenko has a bass drum and suspended cymbal but no
glockenspiel whereas Andrew Litton on Virgin has it all but seems to opt for
crash cymbals instead. In terms of quantity of percussion as, apparently,
does the recent highly regarded Petrenko recording which I have not heard.
This is just one example of the variety of versions that can be heard and
these differences occur to differing degrees throughout the work. I think it
would be wrong to base a final judgement on the inclusion or omission of
some percussion writing. My instinct is that Rachmaninov would have pruned
some of it if the work had been revised.
Where Kitajenko is unusual is his willingness to linger lovingly in the
lyrical passages. This links the music forward to the achingly Romantic
melodies of Rachmaninov's later more famous music. This is
particularly true of the slow third movement. In his study of
Rachmaninov's orchestral works Patrick Piggott describes it thus:
"It is likely Rachmaninov would have made considerable changes to the
slow movement [which] includes an inept middle section ... themes combine to
form a gloomy but unmemorable bass theme ... a passage which even the most
careful performance does not save from banality." Kitajenko flies
directly in the face of such an admonition and triumphantly makes a virtue
out of the potential gloom. As before, his musical vision is helped greatly
by the dark rich weight of the orchestra's playing and the excellence
of the Oehms engineering.
Right up to the finale, I have been surprised but impressed by this broad
and weighty approach. Kitajenko carries this through to the finale which he
plays at a positively steady - majestic perhaps - speed. The approach is
wholly in keeping with what has come before but I am less convinced. The
score marking has the main tempo indication as
Allegro con fuoco
with the crochet/quarter note at 152 beats per minute. The fiery "con
fuoco" is the key for me here; the Kitajenko tempo - which does produce
a final grand pay-off is simply not that. This
is a young
man's work with a young man's passions and excesses. Kitajenko
while giving the music an impressive grandeur deprives it of the sense of
impetuous "vengeance is mine" which hangs over the work as its
famed motto. Svetlanov it turns out is just about the only conductor to take
that tempo marking at face value. It makes for a wild ride into the abyss -
one which the rather old Melodiya engineering simply can't cope with
but by goodness it is thrilling. I return to my earlier description of this
interpretation as 'epic'. That seems especially appropriate
for the finale. The movement builds to a cataclysmic climax and a crash on
the tam-tam. Kitajenko's tam-tam is a huge deep-toned roar which fits
perfectly with his conception. Oh that he (or possibly the editor?) had held
the orchestral pause a few seconds longer. From there to the end of the work
the vengeance theme repeats with ever-heavier orchestration until two heavy
chords in an unambivalent D major. Kitajenko stays true to his vision right
through to these chords; hammered out with a thudding weight quite out of
tempo to the preceding bars. Perhaps I have lived too long with the
adrenalin-fuelled drama of Svetlanov to be able to wholly embrace this
alternative view. Even so, it is certainly a fascinating challenging and
totally compelling interpretation of this powerful symphony.
Too often the inclusion of Rachmaninov's early orchestral work
The Rock feels like a filler. Not here. If I
enjoyed but was ultimately unwilling to change my preferred version of the
symphony,
The Rock receives by some measure the most impressive
performance of it I have heard. Kitajenko brings exactly the same virtues of
weight, superbly flexible and responsive playing from the
Gürzenich-Orchester, and a sense of epic drama. The dancing snowflakes of
the solo flute in the opening is beautifully juxtaposed against the
glowering low strings. Little details in the scoring include glittering harp
and suspended cymbal which add to the orchestral colour. The balancing of
the writing - which can verge on the thick and glutinous in other hands - is
brilliantly achieved. At this time - it was his Op.7 - the debt to
Tchaikovsky verges on plagiarism but as elsewhere Kitajenko turns this
potential flaw into an advantage by embracing it for its maximum dramatic
potential. Compared to other Rachmaninov there is a distinct lack of
memorable themes. Those that do emerge are short-breathed and rely too
heavily on a Tchaikovskian sequential repetition. That said, I have never
ever been aware just how skilfully scored this work is. Kitajenko's
pacing is perfection too so these repetitions draw the listener forward to
the work's central climax [track 5 11:50] as a moment of cathartic
release. The score can be followed on IMSLP again. It is fascinating to see,
even in his first published orchestral work, how carefully Rachmaninov
manipulates the pacing of the work and how expertly Kitajenko handles these
potentially fussy tinkerings with the basic pulse to create the sense of a
fluid continuum.
So even in a crowded marketplace, this disc has something rather special
to offer for one work and an interesting and challenging take on the other.
These are performances that underline for me that Rachmaninov was from his
earliest works a confident and original composer for the orchestra with a
real flair for drama. Certainly there is more than enough quality on show
artistically, musically and technically to make me follow any other discs
that might appear in this series with great interest.
Nick Barnard
