Orchestral Suite No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)
Encyclopedia
The Orchestral Suite No. 4 Op.
61, more commonly known as Mozartiana, is an orchestral suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
, written in 1887 as a tribute to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
on the 100th anniversary of that composer's opera Don Giovanni
. Because this suite consists of four orchestrations of piano pieces by (or in one case, based on) Mozart, Tchaikovsky did not number this suite with his previous three suites for orchestra. Instead, he considered it a separate work entitled Mozartiana. Nevertheless, it is usually counted as No. 4 of his orchestral suites.
Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere himself, in Moscow in November 1887. It was the only one of his suites he conducted, and only the second at whose premiere he was present.
s, oboe
s, clarinet
s, bassoon
s and trumpet
s, four horns, timpani
, cymbal
s, glockenspiel
, harp
and string
s.
Tchaikovsky had always held Don Giovanni in the greatest awe, and regarded Mozart as his musical God. The great soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia
, who was the teacher of Tchaikovsky's one-time unofficial fiancée Désirée Artôt
(and whom she may have persuaded not to go through with her plan to marry the composer), had purchased the manuscript of the opera in 1855 in London, and kept it in a shrine in her home, where it was visited by many people. Tchaikovsky visited her when he was in Paris in June 1886, and said that when looking at the manuscript, he was "in the presence of divinity". So it is not surprising that the centenary of the opera in 1887 would inspire him to write something honouring Mozart. (Curiously, the title role in the centenary production of Don Giovanni in Prague
was sung by the man who replaced Tchaikovsky in Désirée Artôt's affections, her husband, the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos
.) He wrote the work in the summer of 1887 at a spa town in the Caucasus, where he went to cure a supposed liver complaint.
Tchaikovsky had hoped in Mozartiana to recreate "the past in a contemporary world," as he wrote his publisher Jürgenson. However, he neither reworks the music in his own style as Stravinsky
later would nor do anything to enhance Mozart's music. The one movement which posterity has viewed as falling short of Tchaikovsky's goal was the third, the Preghiera. Tchaikovsky was not working directly from a Mozart text but from Liszt
's idiosyncratic treatment of Mozart's music in "À la Chapelle Sixtine." The result is generally regarded today as too sentimental and lush a treatment of Mozart's ethereal and tender original.
Also, while the gigue
and minuet
are effectively scored, Tchaikovsky's choice of them for his opening movements suggest that like many of his contemporaries he failed to make enough distinction between Mozart's lighter and more profound sides. The final variations are more successful, as he can indulge in colorful scoring which characterized in Tchaikovsky's manner some aspects Mozart explored with this theme. Even then Mozart appears to represent the prettiness of the baroque rather than something deeper. Tchaikovsky's apparent inability to see the real power and variety of Mozart's music may have been part of his psychological need to regard the past with wistfulness and associate it with lost purity and felicity. This inevitably committed him to a view that proved merely sentimental.
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
61, more commonly known as Mozartiana, is an orchestral suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, written in 1887 as a tribute to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
on the 100th anniversary of that composer's opera Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. Because this suite consists of four orchestrations of piano pieces by (or in one case, based on) Mozart, Tchaikovsky did not number this suite with his previous three suites for orchestra. Instead, he considered it a separate work entitled Mozartiana. Nevertheless, it is usually counted as No. 4 of his orchestral suites.
Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere himself, in Moscow in November 1887. It was the only one of his suites he conducted, and only the second at whose premiere he was present.
Orchestration
This suite is scored for pairs of fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s and trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, four horns, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
and string
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
s.
Structure
Mozartiana is in four movements and lasts approximately 20 minutes.- GigueGigueThe gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...
. Allegro (G major)- After the Little Gigue for piano, K. 574.
- MenuetMinuetA minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
. Moderato (D major)- After the Minuet for piano, K. 355.
- Preghiera. Andante ma non tanto (B flat major)
- After Franz LisztFranz LisztFranz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's piano transcription of the Ave verum corpusAve verum corpus (Mozart)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Ave verum corpus in D major was written for Anton Stoll who was musical co-ordinator in the parish of Baden bei Wien, near Vienna. This setting of the Ave verum corpus text was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi and the autograph is dated 17 June 1791...
, K. 618. (In 1862 Liszt wrote a piano transcription combining Gregorio AllegriGregorio AllegriGregorio Allegri was an Italian composer of the Roman School and brother of Domenico Allegri; he was also a priest and a singer. He lived mainly in Rome, where he would later die.-Life:...
's MiserereMiserere (Allegri)Miserere, full name "Miserere mei, Deus" by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri, is a setting of Psalm 51 composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for use in the Sistine Chapel during matins, as part of the exclusive Tenebrae service on Wednesday and Friday of Holy...
and Mozart's Ave verum corpus, published as "À la Chapelle Sixtine" (S.461). Tchaikovsky orchestrated only the part of this work that had been based on Mozart.)
- After Franz Liszt
- Thème et variations. Allegro giusto (G major)
- After the piano Variations on a Theme by GluckChristoph Willibald GluckChristoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
, K. 455. (The theme was the aria "Unser dummer Pöbel meint", from Gluck's opera "La Rencontre imprévue, or Les Pèlerins de la MecqueLa rencontre imprévueLes pèlerins de la Mecque ou La rencontre imprévue Wq. 32 is a comédie mêlée d'ariettes, a form of opéra comique, composed in 1763 by Christoph Willibald Gluck to a libretto by Louis Hurtaut Dancourt after the 1726 play by Alain René Lesage and d'Orneval....
").
- After the piano Variations on a Theme by Gluck
Overview
Tchaikovsky's treatment of Mozart's work here was both faithful and, as David Brown phrases it, "affectionate." He took the music as it stood and endeavoured to present it in the best possible light—this is, in late 19th-century guise. His intent was to win greater appreciation among his contemporaries for Mozart's lesser known works.Tchaikovsky had always held Don Giovanni in the greatest awe, and regarded Mozart as his musical God. The great soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia
Pauline Garcia-Viardot
Pauline Viardot [née García] was a leading nineteenth-century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue and composer of Spanish descent.-Name:Her name appears in various forms. When it is not simply "Pauline Viardot", it most commonly appears in association with her maiden name García or the unaccented...
, who was the teacher of Tchaikovsky's one-time unofficial fiancée Désirée Artôt
Désirée Artôt
Désirée Artôt was a Belgian soprano , who was famed in German and Italian opera and sang mainly in Germany...
(and whom she may have persuaded not to go through with her plan to marry the composer), had purchased the manuscript of the opera in 1855 in London, and kept it in a shrine in her home, where it was visited by many people. Tchaikovsky visited her when he was in Paris in June 1886, and said that when looking at the manuscript, he was "in the presence of divinity". So it is not surprising that the centenary of the opera in 1887 would inspire him to write something honouring Mozart. (Curiously, the title role in the centenary production of Don Giovanni in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
was sung by the man who replaced Tchaikovsky in Désirée Artôt's affections, her husband, the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos was a Spanish operatic baritone who excelled in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni.- Life :...
.) He wrote the work in the summer of 1887 at a spa town in the Caucasus, where he went to cure a supposed liver complaint.
Tchaikovsky had hoped in Mozartiana to recreate "the past in a contemporary world," as he wrote his publisher Jürgenson. However, he neither reworks the music in his own style as Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
later would nor do anything to enhance Mozart's music. The one movement which posterity has viewed as falling short of Tchaikovsky's goal was the third, the Preghiera. Tchaikovsky was not working directly from a Mozart text but from Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's idiosyncratic treatment of Mozart's music in "À la Chapelle Sixtine." The result is generally regarded today as too sentimental and lush a treatment of Mozart's ethereal and tender original.
Also, while the gigue
Gigue
The gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...
and minuet
Minuet
A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
are effectively scored, Tchaikovsky's choice of them for his opening movements suggest that like many of his contemporaries he failed to make enough distinction between Mozart's lighter and more profound sides. The final variations are more successful, as he can indulge in colorful scoring which characterized in Tchaikovsky's manner some aspects Mozart explored with this theme. Even then Mozart appears to represent the prettiness of the baroque rather than something deeper. Tchaikovsky's apparent inability to see the real power and variety of Mozart's music may have been part of his psychological need to regard the past with wistfulness and associate it with lost purity and felicity. This inevitably committed him to a view that proved merely sentimental.