NO HOPE OF REDEMPTION

Tchaikovsky’s life alternated between tragedy and happiness. He was born in 1840 in Kamsko-Votkinsk, and received his first piano lessons from his mother at the age of five. His parents established the family home in St. Petersburg in 1852, after moving house a number of times. During the following 10 years, Tchaikovsky read law, found employment as a civil servant, travelled throughout Europe as an interpreter and, on the whole, led a carefree and joyous life. He was only sporadically interested in music: his sole artistic activities consisted of evenings spent at the opera or at concerts, and irregular piano lessons.

In 1862 came the radical turnabout: Tchaikovsky enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire to study composition under Anton Rubinstein and Nikolai Zaremba. In 1866 he began teaching composition at the Moscow Conservatoire, where he remained for 12 years. It was during this intensive and especially productive period of composition that he wrote his first great works. However, his productivity was overshadowed by major problems: in order to counterbalance rumours concerning his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky rushed into marriage with one of his students. This resulted in chaos, inner despair and, finally, a suicide attempt.

Only after he came into contact with the well-to-do Nadezhda von Meck, did Tchaikovsky begin to find some peace in his troubled life. The generous annual income she fixed on him made it possible for him to give up his position at the Conservatoire and to work independently as a composer from 1878 onwards. Their relationship continued for 13 years, without the composer and his patroness ever actually meeting. More than 1200 letters bear witness to what was probably the most unusual relationship in the history of music. This ended abruptly in 1890, when Madame von Meck discontinued the correspondence. Tchaikovsky was deeply hurt by this and his inner loneliness gained the upper hand, never more to relinquish its hold. Not even his triumphant successes as a conductor were able to diminish his melancholy. Tchaikovsky died in 1893 – supposedly from cholera. However, rumours concerning suicide or even murder by poison still abound to this day. This opened the way to a romanticised approach to his musical oeuvre, in which the works were considered only as psychological mirrors, dramas full of weltschmerz and portrayals of the Russian soul. Tchaikovsky was always vehemently opposed to this view: “An artist leads a double life; both that of an ordinary man and that of an artist. [...] He who believes that the creative artist is capable of expressing in his art what he feels in the heat of the moment, is deeply wrong.”

Tchaikovsky wrote his Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48 between September 21 and November 4, 1880, during an unusual phase of relaxation. He had spent a great deal of time that year studying Mozart’s work. The following lines to Nadezhda von Meck witness the joy with which he composed the Serenade: “I wrote as if possessed. This work comes straight from the heart and is not without artistic value, if I dare say so myself.” The work is not typical of Tchaikovsky: as far as content is concerned, it could be classified somewhere between a sinfonietta and a suite. Many details could, in fact, have been written by a German or French composer, but the specifically Russian part can be found in the Finale. The first movement in sonatina form (fast - slow - fast - slow) demonstrates the intensity with which Tchaikovsky had been studying Mozart. As far as its springy elegance is concerned, the second movement (Waltz) would not be out of place among Tchaikovsky’s ballet compositions. In its melancholy and expressive intensity, the Elegy offers a strong contrast to the other movements. In the two-part Finale, Tchaikovsky assimilates two folk songs – one with a melancholy, the other with a vigorous character. Before the virtuoso final stretta, the venerable introduction to the first movement reappears one last time and thus staples the composition together. Why would wind instruments be necessary, when such shimmering sounds can “only” be created by the strings?

The orchestral fantasy Francesca da Rimini makes a far different impression on the listener than the string serenade. This is a true tone poem, presenting pure programme music. Above the score, Tchaikovsky placed the episode from the fifth song of the “inferno” from Dante’s Commedia Divina. This depicts the unhappy, forbidden love of Francesca da Rimini for the brother of her husband Giancitto, which ends tragically when he discovers Francesca and his brother Paolo in the act of kissing and kills them both. Tchaikovsky, who read this story – which incidentally was based on true facts – in the summer of 1876 on his way to Bayreuth to attend the première of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, was immediately intrigued and composed the three-movement work following his return to Moscow within a period of only three weeks “with love; and I made a success of it”, as he informed his brother Modest. The work is written in A-B-A-Form.

The first and third movements of the work give a drastic description (in imitation of the finale from Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique) of the torments of hell, which Francesca and Paolo are doomed to permanently undergo suffer as eternal sinners. The ostinato-like repetitions and intensifications run through the movement like a central theme. In the middle, however, a very different kind of music can be heard. The love between Francesca and Paolo is portrayed musically in a lyrical theme played by the strings, which is contrasted elegiacally by the clarinet. The intensity of expression is continually heightened, until finally the sound of the horn announces the onset of the catastrophe, i.e. the imminent approach of the husband Giancitto. In the third movement, the “hellish dance” of the first movement is repeated, shortened and condensed in an “explosion of drums”. There is no hope of redemption for the sinners.

“This is Leopold Stokowski's third, and last, recording of Tchaikovsky's tone poem on Dante's doomed lovers and his first complete recording of the "Serenade," both made in 1974 when he was age 92….Pentatone's remastering of the Philips tapes has resulted in conventional stereo reproduction of great sweetness as well as clarity, and those with SACD players can finally hear the vivid four-channel versions for the first time. Stokowski often was ahead of everyone else in sound reproduction--and here again is exciting proof, discovered 30 years later.”
-Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune

“The present performances were not served well by the long-playing record, as they were taped quadraphonically but issued only in cloudy two-channel sound. Pentatone's remastering of the Philips tapes has resulted in conventional stereo reproduction of great sweetness as well as clarity, and those with SACD players can finally hear the vivid four-channel versions for the first time. Stokowski often was ahead of everyone else in sound reproduction--and here again is exciting proof, discovered 30 years later.”
--Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune

“If we collect the electricity that flows from Stowkowski and the LSO in this pair of recordings, there would be no energy crisis! This is simply extraordainary playing which is matched to a very well balanced recording which has been bought back to life by Pentatone - thank you!… I cannot recommend this recording strongly enough - I sincerely hope there are more RQR releases like this to follow.”
--John Broggio, SA-CD.net

“What a pleasure it is to have Leopold Stokowski's 1974 Tchaikovsky recordings on SACD!…. This is Stokowski's only complete recording of Serenade for Strings (in 1949 he recorded the Waltz with the NYP for Columbia, also reissued on Cala). Francesca and Serenade were recorded in October 1974 in London's Wembly, Brent Town Hall with producer Eric Smith and balance engineer Hans Lauterslager. There is a fine sense of space—what we hear is the original four-track recording, and there's no question the SACD process lets us hear more detail than on previous issues.”
--Robert Benson, classicalcdreview.com

“It´s a small miracle that a person who is 92 years old can produce music of this calibre. There is no doubt whatsoever that Stokowki was a man full of vitality during these session because this music doesn´t play itself….The recorded sound is very good with a wide dynamic range and a good front to back perspective. It sounds like in the old analogue days when you could actually tell where records were recorded, where you recognized the hall ambience.”
--Thomas Roth, SA-CD.net

“I have to say that the remastering on this disc is simply outstanding - one would never guess that these recordings will celebrate their 21st annivesary in mid 2006! The recordings, as in the other releases in the RQR series so far derive from the quadrophonic archive of Philips Classics, are superbly balanced; both those made in Bad Homburg (all except the Vivaldi) and La Chaud de Fonds (Vivaldi) are wonderful - spacious and just ever-so-slightly overly resonant….For fans of light Romantic music and any oboe fan - this is self-recommending; the performances are unlikely to be significantly bettered in the foreseeable future.”
John Broggio, SA-CD.net