VCHpresents Chamber: The Elegiac Russian

THE ELEGIAC RUSSIAN 6 JAN 2022, 7.30PM VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

PROGRAMME TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11 I. Moderato e semplice II. Andante cantabile III. Scherzo. Allegro non tanto e con fuoco IV. Finale. Allegro giusto

30 mins

Chen Da Wei, violin Nikolai Koval, violin Janice Tsai, viola Chan Wei Shing, cello

KHACHATURIAN Trio in G minor for Clarinet, Violin and Piano I. Andante con dolore, con molt'espressione II. Allegro III. Moderato

15 mins

Li Xin, clarinet Ye Lin, violin Yao Xiao Yun, piano

RACHMANINOFF Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor

15 mins

Chikako Sasaki, violin Jamshid Saydikarimov, cello Albert Tiu, piano

CONCERT DURATION: approximately 1 hour 15 mins (with no intermission)

PROGRAMME NOTES PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 - 1893) String Quartet No. 1 Op. 11 I. Moderato e semplice II. Andante cantabile III. Scherzo. Allegro non tanto e con fuoco IV. Finale. Allegro giusto Filled with heartfelt melody and some of his best string writing, this quartet is the highlight of Tchaikovsky’s small chamber output. Its origins are much more prosaic, however: he wrote it for money. In 1871, when his salary from teaching at the Moscow Conservatory was very low, he organised a concert of his own chamber music, and quickly composed the quartet for the event. What emerged from this endeavour is a string quartet in the Classical style, refracted through Tchaikovsky’s very Slavic Romanticism — tightly-constructed forms, an elegant manner, and a very nostalgic feel.

The first movement’s obsessively rocking 9/8 rhythm is offset against the rich harmonies and sheer fullness of the string quartet sound. Nobody gets the upper hand in this one, as it were, with all four players present throughout in a very dense texture full of busy inner voices and double stops. This is Tchaikovsky thinking orchestrally and making a grand statement, which makes the fragile folk-song of the second movement stand out in stark contrast.

The first violin dominates in this chorale, getting the melody in both the first and second themes. The famous opening melody is attributed to a folk-song Tchaikovsky learnt in his travels around Russia; the second theme, a soaring song over pizzicato cello chromatics, is wholly Tchaikovsky’s own. The folksy character carries on into the Scherzo, which foreruns the famous character dances in the great Tchaikovsky ballets. One can imagine the footstamping and spinning in circles easily here, and that jaunty mood carries on into the generous Finale, which is a sprightly rondo filled with violin fireworks.

ARAM ILYICH KHACHATURIAN (1903 - 1978) Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano I. Andante con dolore, con molt'espressione II. Allegro III. Moderato Khachaturian’s position in the classical canon of composers has never been certain: his Armenian origin would have made him an outsider among Russian friends, though the Soviet emphasis on folk music as a way to tie the disparate republics together would have raised his standing. His “Sabre Dance”, from the ballet Gayaneh, is most listeners’ introduction to Armenian music, and indeed all of his compositions arise from his Armenian roots.

The Clarinet Trio, written while he was still a student at the Moscow Conservatory, features the clarinet as a neighbour to the Armenian duduk, a double reed instrument with a very mellow character. Indeed, while Khachaturian allows his instruments free rein over their entire ranges, the clarinet dwells often in its lowest range. Much of the writing in this trio sounds improvisatory, and the piano takes a clearly backgrounded role, laying down the harmonic basis for the roulades in the other two instruments.

The first movement features one melody that is repeated with more and more ornaments added each time, creating a sense of hypnosis among the harmonic clouds. The agitation in the second movement springs out of this, with a theme exploding into a chattering Presto and building into a grand climax.

This is a strategy taken again in the third movement, though Khachaturian fleshes out the theme and variations fully after the duduk-clarinet intones a folk-like tune. The harmony is considerably more complicated in this movement, and the tune is continually re-harmonised and cast in different lights as the tempo changes happen.

The ending climax is a fantastically rousing dance, though Khachaturian’s real genius shines through in his deliberate choice to hit the brakes and compose a melancholy, somber fadeout ending.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873 - 1943) Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor Rachmaninoff’s early one-movement “No. 1” was not published until 55 years after its composition, by which time there was already another Trio élégiaque that had been assigned Opus 9 in Rachmaninoff’s own catalogue. Rachmaninoff shuffled a lot of his early works around in addition to revising them, and there was a set of piano pieces that existed as Opus 1 before he decided to withdraw them and give pride of place to his First Piano Concerto (that he also couldn’t resist re-writing a fresh third movement for).

The gentle opening is entirely characteristic of Rachaminoff, as is the sheer amount of bombast he summons up four minutes in for the first climax. After the piano opens with the theme, the cello and violin get their own development sections and treat the same material in very different ways, which pass for what would be movements in a regular piano trio. Rachmaninoff chose a hybrid form for the increased flexibility, though, and the tempo changes that mark different sections are direct transfers from how his own piano music was constructed: full of Russian pathos, with an overarching belief in melody, and an orchestral pacing deeply influenced by Tchaikovsky.

The powerful sweep of the music and its depth of emotion make it hard to believe that Rachmaninoff composed this in only four days, but in 1891 he was already one of the most skilled pianists of his generation and was developing into composerhood.

The final funeral march is a leaf out of Tchaikovsky’s book — much of this Trio is influenced

by Tchaikovsky’s own — but the intensity of the emotional journey is entirely Rachmaninoff’s own.

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Founded in 1979, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is Singapore’s flagship orchestra, touching lives through classical music and providing the heartbeat of the cultural scene in the cosmopolitan city-state. Our Chief Conductor is Hans Graf. While the SSO performs frequently at the Esplanade Concert Hall, for a more intimate experience, we return to the place of our beginnings, the Victoria Concert Hall (VCH) – the home of the SSO. The VCH is host to our popular Children’s, Family and biannual free Lunchtime Concerts as well as our VCHpresents chamber series.

HANS GRAF Chief Conductor

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