Sunday Classics: Our 2nd Annual "Very Tchaikovsky Christmas"

Violinist Joshua Bell plays Tchaikovsky's most famous song, "None but the Lonely Heart," accompanied by Michael Stern and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. We're going to hear the song actually sung later.

by Ken

Last year I took advantage of the impending Christmas holiday to point out that you could get utterly delicious and authoritative performances of Tchaikovsky's three great ballets -- Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker -- conducted by the distinguished ballet composer-arranger-conductor John Lanchbery, only slightly inconveniently scrunched onto five CDs, for under $20! I'll bet you can still find cheap copies around, but unfortunately EMI has deleted that set.

(There are Amazon vendors listing the individual ballets priced from $5.49 through $9.98, and even with three shipping charges added, that's a good buy. The six-CD set of André Previn's wonderful recordings with the London Symphony is still available, and as I write there are Amazon vendors selling it for as little as $11.90 and $14.99. You can also find inexpensive copies of the individual ballets. There's also a fine Decca set conducted by Richard Bonynge, and a host of attractively priced issues of all three ballets.)

We talked a little more about the Tchaikovsky ballets recently, and I'm sure we'll have occasion to come back to them. But for now --


I. VISIONS OF SUGAR PLUMS

Of course only The Nutcracker has a Christmas association. So just to touch base, I thought we'd start with the composer's own suite, from a slightly unexpected source -- this isn't music you necessarily associate with Leonard Bernstein.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a

i. Overture


ii. Danses caractéristiques:
(a) March
(b) Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
(c) Russian Dance (Trepak)
(d) Arabian Dance
(e) Chinese Dance
(f) Dance of the Mirlitons


iii. Waltz of the Flowers


New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded May 2, 1960


II. SONG OF THE RUSSIAN SOUL

As I mentioned in last night's Sunday Classics preview, I want to look at, or rather listen to, the element in Tchaikovsky's music that defies description without the words "soul" and "soulful." It is, as I suggested, one of the building blocks of Russian music, one of its most powerful appeals to non-Russian ears -- though perhaps also one of the things that certain later Russian composers worked like heck to get out from under. (Obviously I'm thinking of Igor Stravinsky.)

For some reason the music that pops to mind is from an operatic scene that appears to be something of a throwaway until you take into account how much it tells us about who these people are. It's the second scene of Act I of Tchaikovsky's not-at-all-faithful rendering of Pushkin's Queen of Spades (he had a very different agenda from that of the laconic poet-playwright), following hard upon one of the most action-packed, dramatic opening scenes in all of opera. At curtain rise we find our heroine, Lisa, entertaining a group of friends in her room in the home of her guardian, the old Countess.

As the scene starts [track 1], Lisa and her friend Paulina, who's at the piano (the libretto says "harpsichord," but I don't think I've ever heard that), sing a song about the setting of the sun, [2] to the approval of the others. Lisa urges Paulina to sing a song of her own, but it takes her a moment to think of something to sing, whereupon [3] she addresses her "dear friends" ("podrugi miliye," sung twice, with a tingling upward sweep on the second) and offers them a brooding song about former happiness and (yikes!) a grave. When the clarinet picks up the haunting tune of her song, Paulina chides herself for choosing such a morbid song, then [4] launches a "jolly Russian" ditty about a happy bridegroom and bride, which draws a suitably lively response from the girls until [5] Lisa's governess storms in upbraiding the girls for their raucous behavior, which has drawn a complaint from the Countess. (As we will hear, complaining comes readily to the old woman, especially when it concerns the shocking deterioration in behavior and standards.) Such behavior, the Governess explains, is appropriate in the servants' hall, but not for well-bred young ladies.


Mirella Freni (s), Lisa; Katherine Ciesinksi (ms), Paulina; Janis Taylor (ms), Governess; Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1991

Unfortunately, I don't have a CD edition of the recording I would have liked to excerpt, the Bolshoi Opera's first stereo Queen of Spades, conducted by Boris Khaikin, in which the great dramatic mezzo-soprano Irina Arkhipova brought her deep, rich voice to this rather small role; she really makes you feel the upward sweep on that second "Podrugi miliye.") With the passage of time Arkhipova, like many distinguished Russian mezzos before (and after) her, migrated to the crotchety role of the old Countess. Here she is in Act II, Scene 2, sending her chattering maids off and expressing her vehement distaste for all things modern and then [track 2], giving voice to her preference for The Way Things Were, sings the aria "Je crains de lui parler la nuit" ("I fear speaking to him at night") from André Grétry's Richard the Lion-Hearted, from the last century.

OOPS, I LEFT OUT THE ARKHIPOVA CLIP!

So here, belatedly, is the great Irina Arkhipova -- at 66 -- singing the first bit of the Countess's scene in Act II, Scene 2 of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades:


Orchestra of the Kirov Theater, Valery Gergiev, cond. Philips, recorded May 1992

As long as we're in Queen of Spades and talking about "soul," it seems foolish to neglect the gorgeous aria, just possibly the most beautiful aria ever written, from the scene between the two we've sampled, Act II, Scene 1, the ball at which the dashing Prince Yeletsky, a prince in every imaginable sense, first has to persuade an evasive Lisa to linger with him a moment, then straightforwardly and unabashedly declares [track 2], "I love you." I've always thought it a measure of Tchaikovsky's scrupulous fairness as an artist that he portrayed Yeletsky so attractively, while the opera is trying to arouse sympathy for the tormented outsider, Gherman, who attracts Lisa's fascination.


Vladimir Chernov (b), Yeletsky; Maria Guleghina (s), Lisa; Orchestra of the Kirov Theater, Valery Gergiev, cond. Philips, recorded May 1992

Again, I'd have liked to present a different performance of Yeletsky's recitative and aria -- from the next-earliest Bolshoi Queen of Spades, conducted by Alexander Melik-Pashayev, with the peerless Armenian baritone Pavel Lisitsian. (I think Chernov sings it quite nicely, though.) By way of compensation, here is Lisitsian singing Tchaikovsky's "None but the Lonely Heart":

UPDATE: THE LISITSIAN RECORDING SUPPLIED!

Thanks to our friend Balakirev, we can hear one of the most stupendous pieces of singing I know, Lisitsian's recording of Yeletsky's aria from Queen of Spades -- including the preceding recitative. (I have a Russian Lisitsian LP on which the aria performance is neatly lifted out of the complete Queen of Spades, but without the lead-in, so it just starts with "Ya vas lyublyu." Unbelievable! No such dereliction from our friend B -- this week's Sunday Classics hero!) Wow! It's especially interesting to hear Lisitsian's performance alongside Vladimir Chernov's perfectly respectable one. If you want to hear the difference between pretty good singing and great singing, here it is. Wow!


Pavel Lisitsian (b), Yeletsky; Yevgenia Smolenskaya (s), Lisa; Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Alexander Melik-Pashayev, cond. Melodiya, recorded c 1951

III. WORLD'S MOST SOULFUL SYMPHONIES

"Heart on sleeve" is one of the ways in which Tchaikovsky's six unapologetically emotional symphonies are belittled. This is one of those cases where the public has gotten it righter than the belittlers -- way righter. One of the fascinations of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, in fact, is that no two of them resemble each other. The composer invented a new model each time out. But even in the most extroverted and dynamic of them, the Fourth, the element of "soul" threads its way in. Here's the tempestuous finale:

TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36:
iv. Finale: Allegro con fuoco

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, David Zinman, cond. Telarc, recorded Nov. 20-25, 1989

Surely the most surprising finale, and possibly the most surprising movement in a Tchaikovsky symphony, is the last movement of the last of them, the haunting finale of the Pathétique. This is a symphony that begins in the brooding depths of the orchestra, in time disgorging one of the composer's most famous, most throbbing melodies, then continues with a "slow" movement that's really an "allegro" and an imposing march movement that could pass for the finale of most symphonies. But Tchaikovsky had in mind a more anguished envoi.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique):
iv. Finale: Adagio lamentoso; Andante

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Jan. 26, 1955

I suppose it's possible that Mahler would have arrived independently at the idea of concluding his most monumental symphony, the Third, with an elegiac parting movement. But in my mind there's no question that in his mind this remarkable precedent of Tchaikovsky was playing in the background.


SYMPHONIC BONUSES

I don't mean to suggest that we've done anything like justice to these great symphonies. This is a pretty backwards way of looking at works that are, after all, dominated by enormous (20-minute-ish) opening movements, and feature pretty remarkable middle ones too. (Hey, how about that soulful yet perky little song that slips in after the massive first movement of the Fourth, or the plucked-strings scherzo that follows?) In compensation, and in the spirit of holiday cheer, here are the complete symphonies.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36:
i. Andante sostenuto; Moderato con anima; Moderato assai, quasi andante; Allegro vivo
ii. Andante in modo di canzone
iii. Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato; Allegro
iv. Finale: Allegro con fuoco

London Symphony Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Decca, recorded September 1962

TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique):
i. Adagio; Allegro non troppo
ii. Allegro con grazia
ii. Allegro molto vivace
iv. Finale: Adagio lamentoso; Andante

London Symphony Orchestra, Igor Markevitch, cond. Philips, recorded January 1962


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

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