Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (5/7/1840, Votkinsk-11/6/1893, Saint Petersburg)

Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, “Little Russian” (1872, rev. 1879-80)

Orchestra: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam), orchestral strings

Length: ca. 35 minutes

I. Andante sostenuto -- Allegro vivo (C minor)

II. Andantino marziale quasi moderato (E-flat major)

III. Scherzo: Allegro molto vivace (C minor)

IV. Finale: Moderato assai — Allegro vivo (C major)

Tchaikovsky began work on his exuberantly folksy Symphony No. 2 in the summer of 1872. On break from his post at the Moscow Conservatory, the 32-year-old professor of harmony was vacationing at the estate of his beloved younger sister, Alexandra (aka Sasha), and her husband, Lev Davidoff. Now, the tendency to play armchair-psychologist and attribute autobiographical origins to Tchaikovsky's artistic impulses seems frequently overplayed. In this case, however, the composer himself spoiled any mystery about who or what might have kindled his inspiration: the butler did it.

The Davidoff's rural retreat was in "Little Russia," which is how imperialist Russians referred to The Ukraine. Sasha's old steward, Peter Gerasimovich, was in the habit of singing homegrown tunes as he puttered about, and one of his Ukrainian Top 40 made it into the symphony's Finale, along with a couple of other folksongs. Tchaikovsky's use of folk music wasn't new for him, and it was in perfect keeping with the self-proclaimed leaders of Russian musical nationalism, Mily Balakirev's "Mighty Handful," namely Mily Balakirev and his protégés, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Cesar Cui. "The Five" were mistrustful of Germanic symphonic techniques, which could not nurture the idealized melodic flowering born of Russian soil, but would instead hack it to bits. On the other hand, Tchaikovsky revered Beethoven and adored Mozart, so he dismissed this view. But he too desired to create music that reflected the national identity, and he recognized that his greatest gift was the ability to craft memorably sweeping melodies. With little precedent, Tchaikovsky cultivated a hybrid of sorts, retaining the outline of symphonic form institutionalized by Papa Haydn, but frequently allowing melody rather than motif to predominate the discourse. Many critics have lambasted this sacrilege as a shortcoming, but time has proven that Tchaikovsky's independence from "the rules" of yore in no way diminished his ability to stir the hearts and minds of listeners through subsequent generations. On the contrary, along with his heroes Beethoven and Mozart, Tchaikovsky remains among the most-performed composers of symphonic music.

Even though Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 mostly substitutes folk music for those uniquely sweeping melodies, when it premiered in Moscow in February 1873 its success was so great that it was repeated by popular demand on two other concerts that same season. The first movement's slow introduction is based on increasingly agitated iterations of the Ukrainian folksong, Down by Mother Volga, which reappears both in the Allegro vivo, and at the movement's conclusion. Rather than the usual adagio, the second movement is an utterly charming wedding march salvaged from Tchaikovsky's discarded opera, Undine, and it quotes a folk-song (Spin, O My Spinner) in the lyrical middle section. For the Scherzo, many discern the influence of Berlioz's gossamer Queen Mab and/or the similarly-inspired Scherzo from Borodin's First Symphony, but to others (i.e., me) the relative earthiness of Tchaikovsky's romp seems more a tribute to Beethoven, especially when one considers that the 4-note motif that heads the trio section (perhaps unintentionally) transforms Beethoven's Fifth Symphony "fate" motif (three repeated notes followed by a descending third) into a jaunty folk-dance by altering the rhythm. The lively Finale presents a series of variations on the butler's favorite folksong, The Crane (Got the Urge), interrupted a couple of times by a contrasting, and surprising jazzy, lyrical second tune. Following Glinka's example, Tchaikovsky's variations leave the melody pretty much intact, while offering variety with an ever-changing background. On the heels of Tchaikovsky's tour de force, the next year Mussorgsky would interpolate The Crane into his Great Gate of Kiev, the final movement of the piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition.

It seems the only real critic of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony was the composer himself. In 1879, he tweaked the orchestration throughout and pruned some excess from the third and fourth movements, and decided that the first movement needed a complete rewrite. He retained the original Introduction and coda, and Down by Mother Volga still figures prominently in the development section as well. But he devised a completely new "first subject," based on a five-note motif taken from a Russian Orthodox liturgical chant, Let God Arise, which Rimsky-Korsakoff would use nine years later to begin his Russian Easter Overture. Tchaikovsky's old "first subject" is truncated as the chromatic start of the new "second subject" area, with an accompaniment figure retained from the old second subject.

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Tchaikovsky began work on his exuberantly folksy Symphony No. 2 in the summer of 1872. On break from his post at the Moscow Conservatory, the 32-year-old professor of harmony was vacationing at the estate of his beloved younger sister, Alexandra (aka Sasha), and her husband, Lev Davidoff. Now, the tendency to play armchair-psychologist and attribute autobiographical origins to Tchaikovsky's artistic impulses seems frequently overplayed, especially given his compositional agility in moving from depth-defying pathos to high-spirited mirth. In this case, however, the composer himself spoiled any mystery about who or what might have kindled his inspiration: the butler did it.

The Davidoff's rural retreat was in "Little Russia," which is how imperialist Russians referred to The Ukraine (much to the dismay of Ukrainians). Sasha's old steward, Peter Gerasimovich, was in the habit of singing homegrown tunes as he puttered about, and one of his Ukrainian Top 40 made it into the symphony's Finale, along with a couple of other folksongs. {Such borrowing wasn't new, as the Finale of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1, Op. 13 ("Winter Dreams," 1866) features a folksong, and his Scherzo a la Russe, Op. 1, no. 1 (1867), is based on a folk tune he heard the gardeners singing on a previous visit with his sister. In 1868, he immersed himself in indigenous music, arranging Fifty Russian Folksongs for piano, 4-hands--No. 6 from this set, Spin, O My Spinner, would march it's way into the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony. }

By this time musical nationalism was in full swing in Russia, led by the "Mighty Handful," namely Mily Balakirev and his protégés, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Cesar Cui. "The Five" were mistrustful of Germanic symphonic techniques, which could not nurture the idealized melodic flowering born of Russian soil, but would instead hack it to bits. On the other hand, Tchaikovsky revered Beethoven and adored Mozart, so he dismissed this view. But he too desired to create music that reflected the national identity, and he recognized that his greatest gift was the ability to craft memorably sweeping melodies. With little precedent, Tchaikovsky cultivated a hybrid of sorts, retaining the outline of symphonic form institutionalized by Papa Haydn, but frequently allowing melody rather than motif to predominate the discourse. Many critics have lambasted this sacrilege as a shortcoming, but time has proven that Tchaikovsky's independence from "the rules" of yore in no way diminished his ability to stir the hearts and minds of listeners through subsequent generations. On the contrary, along with his heroes Beethoven and Mozart, Tchaikovsky remains among the most-performed composers of symphonic music.

As goes Beethoven's Fifth, Tchaikovsky's Second progresses from a C-minor first movement to a triumphant C-major conclusion. The lively Finale presents a series of variations on the butler's favorite folksong, The Crane (Got the Urge), interrupted a couple of times by a contrasting, and surprising jazzy, lyrical second tune. The variations leave the melody pretty much intact, while offering variety with an ever-changing background. Tchaikovsky acknowledged Glinka for providing the model for this type of variation treatment, though the same method had been used earlier, as in the famous "Surprise" variations of Haydn's Symphony No. 94. On the heels of Tchaikovsky's tour de force, the next year Mussorgsky would interpolate The Crane into his Great Gate of Kiev, the final movement of the piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition.

It seems the only real critic of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony was the composer himself. In 1879, he set about to improve the orchestration throughout and to prune any excesses from the third and fourth movements. But he essentially rewrote most of the first movement. The original Introduction remained unchanged, beginning with Down by Mother Volga intoned by unaccompanied horn, and ending with unaccompanied horns in octaves, and it still reappears toward the beginning of the development section, and at the end of the movement. But an entirely new "first subject" is used, based a a five-note motif taken from a Russian Orthodox liturgical chant, Let God Arise, which Rimsky-Korsakoff would use nine years later to begin his Russian Easter Overture. Like Beethoven's "fate" motif, Tchaikovsky's new material is incessantly tossed about, and it also begins with three repeated notes, but the drop of a third at the end is filled in with an added note. What was the old "first subject" is truncated to become the start of the new 6-note "second subject" (characterized by three rising semitones paired with to semitones and the leap of a fourth), followed by a related 7-note diatonic figure that ends with two repeated notes, and that was retained from the original version of the "second subject."

By then he had composed two more symphonies, piano and violin concertos, Swan Lake and Eugene Onegin, to name a few intervening highlights.

Symphony No. 2 begins with a slow introduction based on Down by Mother Volga, which Tchaikovsky identified as a Ukrainian version of a better-known Russian folksong, although the two tunes have little in common. The mournful tune is first intoned by an unaccompanied horn, and is then repeated in full several times with increasingly agitated orchestral variations swirling about it.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (5/7/1840-11/6/1893) is an enduringly popular Russian composer whose melodic invention and orchestral brilliance remain unsurpassed. Among his best loved works are The 1812 Overture, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, Symphonies No. 4-6, and the ballets Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker; plus, his Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto No. 1 are cornerstones of the repertoire.

By now you will have deduced that the butler's folk-tunes also sparked the symphony's nickname, which, however, was not attached to it until 1896, a few year's after the composer had died during a cholera epidemic in Saint Petersburg.

Richard Freed: http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/?fuseaction=composition&composition_id=2113

Stravinsky, who conducted the National Symphony Orchestra's first performance of this work, introduced it into the repertory of several other American orchestras and, somewhat less conspicuously, championed Tchaikovsky's other early symphonies as well. By the time he conducted it here, the NSO, under its founding conductor Hans Kindler, had made the premiere recording of Tchaikovsky's Third Symphony (called the "Polish," with far less justification than No. 2 is called the "Little Russian"), some of whose motifs Stravinsky had used a few years earlier in his ballet score The Fairy's Kiss, all of whose melodic material came from Tchaikovsky.

http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/symphony-no-2-peter-ilyich-tchaikovsky

http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/index.html

List of compoitions by op.# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky

timeline:

1862 Enters St. Petersburg Conservatory

1863 Resigns civil service (U.S. Emancipation Proclamation)

1864 The Storm

1865 1st public performance (J. Strauss Jr. cond.) Characteristic Dances; graduates Conservatory; Rimsky Korsakov Sym 1 (1861-65)

1866 moves to Moscow-music theory teacher; professional composer debut (Over. in F revision); Moscow Conservatory teaching theory ; writes sym1,op.13

1867 2 Pieces, Op.1 Scherzo a la russe; Impromptu)

1868-Fifty Russian Folk Songs pf-4 hands('68-69) (no.6 used in Sym2)- Balakirev & mighty handful; 2 pieces, op.1 published

1868 music review

1869 Romeo; Undine (wedding march in sym2); Borodin Sym#1

1872 Becomes critic; Sym2;

Sym#2:

1.C minor:Rev. 1879: Andante sostenuto (Down by Mother Volga)/

Allegro vivo - Let God Arise - liturgical melody used by Korsakov at the beginning of the Ruddian Easer OVerture - also Beethoven 5th related motive - (dev. includes intro. tune; repeated in coda) - 2nd subject adapted from the beginning bars 1st subj. of original version rewritten, and continued by the

2. E-flat major: Andantino marziale, quasi moderato (re-scored in revision)

This movement was originally a bridal march Tchaikovsky wrote for his unpublished opera Undine. He quotes the folk song "Spin, O My Spinner" in the central section.

3. C minor: Scherzo. Allegro molto vivace. ABAcoda (shortened & rescored)

4. C major: Moderato assai--Allegro vivo. Fanfare: Variations on "The Crane" - lyrical 2nd theme (rev. shortened by 150 bars, rescored)

1873 Jan.-played finale Sym2 at Rimsky-Korsakoff's; Moscow premiere Feb.7; repeated Apr9 & May27

1874 Pf con1; Mussorgsky Pictures

1875 Sym3; begins Swan Lake

1876 Francesca; Marche slav; Roccoco vars.; Brahms Sym1

1877 Sym4; Evgenyi Onegin ; Borodin Sym#2 premiered

1878 vln con;

1879-80 rev sym2; pf con2;

1881 - premiere of revised Sym#2, in St. Petersburg

1888- Rimsky-Korsakoff Russian Easter Overture

1893 - Tchaikovsky dies

1896 Sym2 nicknamed “Little Russian” by the critic Nicholas Kashkin

1897 Balakirev Sym 1 finished (1864-97)

Sym 2 revision: [wikipedia/Brown, David. Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, pp.259-260]: By January 16, [1880] he wrote Sergei Taneyev, "This movement [the first] has come out compressed, short, and is not difficult. If the epithet 'impossible' applies to anything, it is this first movement in its original form. My God! How difficult, noisy, disjointed and muddle-headed this is!"