Piano Trio in A minor, Op 50 Pyotr Il’ych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
1. Pezzo elegiaco. Moderato assai – allegro giusto – adagio con duolo e ben sostenuto – allegro giusto; 2. A. Tema con variazioni. Andante con moto;
B. Variazione finale e coda. Allegro risoluto e con fuoco - andante con moto.
The Piano Trio is one of the few important works by Tchaikovsky to date from the years immediately following the disaster of his abortive marriage in 1877. His patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, had for some time been pressing him for a work for her private trio (whose pianist at one stage was the young Claude Debussy). In March 1880 she wrote to him: “Why have you never written a single trio? Every day I regret it, for every day trios are played to me and I always complain that you have not written one.” Tchaikovsky had for some time been resisting the idea. For one thing, this particular combination of instruments, especially with the heavier pianos being developed during the 19th century, posed considerable problems of balance (which, in the event, Tchaikovsky did not entirely solve). When he eventually replied, he described the combination of strings and piano as “unnatural” and “artificial”, stating categorically that he was not interested in the trio as a form.
What prompted him to change his mind was the death, in March 1881, of the pianist, conductor, and Director of the Moscow Conservatoire, Nikolay Rubinstein. Although Rubinstein had severely criticised his First Piano Concerto, he had, in fact, given the young Tchaikovsky a considerable amount of encouragement. The Trio is dedicated “to the memory of a great artist”.
It is in two large-scale movements. The first is an expansive piece opening with a plaintive melody played by the violin, cello and piano in turn. A livelier linking idea leads a powerful chordal theme played first by the piano, and from there to the movement’s powerful first climax. The music passes through a wide range of moods, stormy and lyrical by turns, with the opening music eventually returning transformed into a subdued funeral march. The movement ends quietly.
It is followed by a set of variations which are said to have been based on events in Rubinstein’s life, although Tchaikovsky never revealed what these were. The theme is a simple folk-like tune for the piano. In the first variation it is restated by the violin with a more active piano accompaniment, while in the second the cello turns it into a slow waltz. Variation 3 is more playful, no 4 turns to the minor, and no 5 is characterised by high, music box-like writing for the piano. The sixth variation, taking its cue from no 2, is an elegant full-blown waltz, the longest variation so far. The sonorous chords of the seventh variation, with violin and cello interjections, lead to a robust fugue (Variation 8), which Tchaikovsky later said could be omitted.
A more sombre mood takes over in Variation 9, with its harp-like flourishes for the piano and elegiac lines for the violin and cello marked ‘lamentoso’. The atmosphere lightens again in the mazurka that forms Variation 10, initially for the piano alone. The gentle song-like eleventh variation is a quiet preparation for the biggest variation of all, a full-scale finale (Tchaikovsky indicates an optional cut of the first section) that culminates in a passionate statement of the first movement’s opening theme, eventually dying away over a solemn funeral march rhythm.
The Four Seasons (Las cuatro estaciones porteñas) Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
1. Primavera porteña; 2. Verano porteño; 3. Otoño porteño; 4. Invierno porteño.
Piazzolla gained his early musical experience playing in the tango orchestras of his native Argentina. He worked as an arranger for several years and in 1946 formed his own band. In 1941 he became the first student of the leading Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera. It was in the 1940s, also, that he began composing more ambitious concert works. In 1954 he composed a symphony which won him a scholarship to study for a year in Paris with the great teacher Nadia Boulanger. She, though, persuaded him that it was his tango compositions, rather than the concert works he had shown her, that represented “the true Piazzolla”. He later gained a considerable reputation as a band-leader, attracting the admiration of leading jazz musicians such as Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, and Dizzy Gillespie.
Unlike Ginastera, whose music celebrates the rural traditions of Argentina, Piazzolla had a much more urban outlook. In particular, he was one of the few composers of concert works to show any interest in the tango, Argentina’s most characteristic contribution to popular music.
The four seasons began life as a score written in 1965 for the play Melenita de oro (The Little Girl with Golden Hair) by the writer Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz. This became the second movement, ‘Summer’, of The four seasons; ‘Spring’ was added in 1969, the other two movements the following year. The work’s full title means ‘The Four Seasons in Buenos Aires’ - ‘Porteños’ is how the city’s inhabitants describe themselves: ‘those who live in the port’. Piazzolla originally wrote the music for his quintet, but it has since become known in a variety of other arrangements.
‘Spring’ is in three sections, the outer ones full of lively, nervy rhythms enclosing a more soulful, lyrical passage. ‘Summer’ also begins with incisive dance rhythms. Gradually the mood becomes mellower, with an extended moody slow section before the brief energetic conclusion. The atmosphere turns more pensive in ‘Autumn’, with a predominance of slow music, in spite of its abrupt, punchy ending. ‘Winter’ is predominantly slow and melancholy. Occasional bursts of energy quickly run out of steam, leaving broad, lyrical melodic lines and a gently wistful air. There is a nod to Piazzolla’s baroque predecessors at the end.
© Mike Wheeler, 2011