Symphony in E flat (Tchaikovsky)
Encyclopedia
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
's Symphony in E flat, Op. posth., was commenced after the Symphony No. 5
, and was intended initially to be the composer's next (i.e. sixth) symphony. Tchaikovsky abandoned this work in 1892, only to reuse much of it in the Third Piano Concerto
and Andante and Finale
for piano and orchestra. Soviet composer Semyon Bogatyryov reconstructed the symphony from Tchaikovsky's sketches and various re-workings between 1951 and 1955. This version was premiered on February 7, 1957, in Moscow by the Moscow Region Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by M. Terian, and was published by the State Music Publishers in Moscow in 1961.
and the Philadelphia Orchestra
gave the American premiere and made the world premiere recording in 1962 for Columbia Records
. The original LPs were released in stereo as MS 6349 and in mono as ML 5749. This recording was later digitally remastered and issued on CD. Only five other conductors have recorded it: Neeme Järvi
, Sergei Skripka
, Kyung-Soo Won, Kees Bakels
, and Leo Ginzburg
.
By November 1889, Tchaikovsky's creative itch was becoming extreme. A year had passed since completing the Fifth Symphony
, and eight months since writing another musical composition. Tchaikovsky confided to the Grand Duke that he had long aspired to crown his creative career with a grand symphony on some as yet undefined programme, but it was a further 18 months before, evidently on his return voyage from America, he jotted down a few preliminary ideas for what might become such a piece. More important still was a programme he roughed out, possibly at the same time: "The ultimate essence ... of the symphony is Life. First part – all impulse, passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short (the finale death – result of collapse). Second part love: third disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short)."
During the following months, while at work on The Nutcracker
and Iolanta
, he continued to note down further materials, but when at last he began systematic work on the piece, many of these and earlier ideas were discarded; nor was the programme to be used. Others were drawn in, however, progress was rapid, and by June 8, 1890, both the first movement and the finale were fully sketched. He had hoped to continue work in July and August, but further composition was delayed until October. Nevertheless, by 4 November the entire symphony was sketched, and within three days the first movement was scored up to the recapitulation
.
Tchaikovsky had already offered to conduct the premiere of the symphony at a charity concert in Moscow the following February. However, after another enforced break, the composer took another look at the sketches and experienced total disenchantment. "It's composed simply for the sake of composing something; there's nothing at all interesting or sympathetic in it," he wrote to his nephew Vladimir Davydov
on December 16, 1892. "I've decided to discard and forget it ... Perhaps," he added, though how he can hardly have realized how precisely, "the subject still has the potential to stir my imagination."
Davydov's response came quickly and, to the composer's surprise, very strongly worded. In a letter dated December 19, 1892, Davydov wrote, "I feel sorry of course, for the symphony that you have cast down from the cliff as they used to do with the children of Sparta, because it seemed to you deformed, whereas it is probably as much a work of genius as the first five."
Tchaikovsky felt a symphony needed urgently. He had no wish to continue making, as he said, "meaningless harmonies and a rhythmical scheme expressive of nothing".
However, Davidov's comments spurred Tchaikovsky to reuse the sketches instead of totally writing them off. The music may have meant nothing to him on a personal level emotionally, but that did not mean it was worthless. The main theme was highly attractive, skillfully worked out, extroverted. When worked out by a composer whose handling of such a theme could become a delight to hear and, for the musicologist, to analyze, the results could become extremely worthwhile after all.
More importantly, the composer did not abandon the thought of writing a new symphony based on the program he conceived. Though his efforts with the E flat symphony did not turn out as planned, they influenced his conception not long afterwards of what would become the Pathétique symphony
. Tchaikovsky converted the symphony's first movement into a one-movement piano concerto (published as Op. 75); after his death, two other movements were completed in a piano concerto version by the Russian composer Sergei Taneyev
, who added them to Tchaikovsky's first movement to produce a full-scale concerto. Known as "Andante" and "Finale," the Tchaikovsky-Taneyev movements are now known as Tchaikovsky's Opus 79.
Bogatyryov utilized primary sources, including Tchaikovsky's initial rough sketches, the full orchestral manuscript of about half of the first movement, and the manuscript and printed score of the third piano concerto.
The first movement of the piano concerto was fully orchestrated by the composer, while the second and third movements were later orchestrated by Sergei Taneyev
, Tchaikovsky's friend and fellow composer.
While the first movement sketches and completed version for piano and orchestra were essentially complete, Bogatyryov found that only 81 of the 204 bars of the second movement were in Tchaikovsky's hand. Here he utilized Tchaikovsky's piano score for the Andante for Piano and Orchestra, Taneyev's orchestration, and a very rough draft by Tchaikovsky.
For the third movement, Bogatyryov followed the insistence of the composer's brother Modeste that this should be a scherzo
and orchestrated a scherzo from Tchaikovsky's Op. 72 piano pieces, as well as more sketches by the composer. Remarkably, the piece fits neatly between the second and fourth movements and even includes final chords that are echoed by the beginning of the fourth movement.
The reconstruction of the fourth movement was based on the piano score for the Finale for Piano and Orchestra, the composer's sketches, and the published orchestration by Taneyev.
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"...
's Symphony in E flat, Op. posth., was commenced after the Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)
The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was composed between May and August 1888 and was first performed in St Petersburg at the Hall of Nobility on November 6 of that year with Tchaikovsky conducting. It is dedicated to Theodore Avé-Lallemant.-Structure:A typical...
, and was intended initially to be the composer's next (i.e. sixth) symphony. Tchaikovsky abandoned this work in 1892, only to reuse much of it in the Third Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. post. 75, was begun as a symphony in E flat. The symphony was abandoned, only to become a single-movement Allegro brillante when published posthumously. Controversy remains, despite the composer's stated intentions, as to what...
and Andante and Finale
Andante and Finale (Tchaikovsky)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Andante and Finale for piano and orchestra was initially intended as the slow movement and finale of the Symphony in E flat, a work he started in 1892 but eventually abandoned. Tchaikovsky began reworking the sketches for these two movements into the second and third...
for piano and orchestra. Soviet composer Semyon Bogatyryov reconstructed the symphony from Tchaikovsky's sketches and various re-workings between 1951 and 1955. This version was premiered on February 7, 1957, in Moscow by the Moscow Region Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by M. Terian, and was published by the State Music Publishers in Moscow in 1961.
Form
The Bogatyryov reconstruction follows the traditional four-movement pattern:- Allegro brillante
- This movement was used for the Third Piano ConcertoPiano Concerto No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. post. 75, was begun as a symphony in E flat. The symphony was abandoned, only to become a single-movement Allegro brillante when published posthumously. Controversy remains, despite the composer's stated intentions, as to what...
, Op. posth. 75.
- This movement was used for the Third Piano Concerto
- Andante
- Taneyev used this music for the Andante for Piano and Orchestra, Op. posth. 79. More recently, it was reused as the slow movement of a projected Cello ConcertoCello Concerto (Tchaikovsky)The Cello Concerto of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is a conjectural work based in part on a 60-bar fragment found on the back of the rough draft for the last movement of the composer's Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique...
.
- Taneyev used this music for the Andante for Piano and Orchestra, Op. posth. 79. More recently, it was reused as the slow movement of a projected Cello Concerto
- Scherzo: Vivace assai
- Perceiving that Tchaikovsky would have written a scherzo for this symphony, Bogatyryov orchestrated this piece from Tchaikovsky's Scherzo-Fantasie, Op.72 No.10.
- Finale: Allegro maestoso
- Taneyev used this music for the Finale for Piano and Orchestra, Op. posth. 79
Recordings
Eugene OrmandyEugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
gave the American premiere and made the world premiere recording in 1962 for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. The original LPs were released in stereo as MS 6349 and in mono as ML 5749. This recording was later digitally remastered and issued on CD. Only five other conductors have recorded it: Neeme Järvi
Neeme Järvi
Neeme Järvi is an Estonian-born conductor.-Early life:Järvi studied music first in Tallinn, and later in Leningrad at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky, and Nikolai Rabinovich, among others...
, Sergei Skripka
Sergei Skripka
Sergei Ivanovich Skripka is a prominent Russian conductor, People's Artist of Russia.Since 1979 works at the Russian State Symphony Cinema Orchestra. Since 1993 he is an Artistic Director and Chief conductor....
, Kyung-Soo Won, Kees Bakels
Kees Bakels
Kees Bakels is a Dutch conductor.Bakels began his musical career as a violinist, and later studied conducting at the Amsterdam Conservatory and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy...
, and Leo Ginzburg
Leo Ginzburg
Leo Moritsevich Ginzburg was a Russian conductor and pianist of Polish origin. He conducted the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra after Lev Steinberg and Nikolai Anosov....
.
The Need to Write ...
"I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote to the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, "For no sooner has some labor been completed ... there appears a desire to begin at once on some new labor.... [U]nder such circumstances this new labor is not always provoked by true creative necessity."By November 1889, Tchaikovsky's creative itch was becoming extreme. A year had passed since completing the Fifth Symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)
The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was composed between May and August 1888 and was first performed in St Petersburg at the Hall of Nobility on November 6 of that year with Tchaikovsky conducting. It is dedicated to Theodore Avé-Lallemant.-Structure:A typical...
, and eight months since writing another musical composition. Tchaikovsky confided to the Grand Duke that he had long aspired to crown his creative career with a grand symphony on some as yet undefined programme, but it was a further 18 months before, evidently on his return voyage from America, he jotted down a few preliminary ideas for what might become such a piece. More important still was a programme he roughed out, possibly at the same time: "The ultimate essence ... of the symphony is Life. First part – all impulse, passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short (the finale death – result of collapse). Second part love: third disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short)."
During the following months, while at work on The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
and Iolanta
Iolanta
Iolanta, Op. 69, is a lyric opera in one act by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, and is based on the Danish play Kong Renés Datter by Henrik Hertz. The play was translated by Fyodor Miller and adapted by Vladimir Zotov...
, he continued to note down further materials, but when at last he began systematic work on the piece, many of these and earlier ideas were discarded; nor was the programme to be used. Others were drawn in, however, progress was rapid, and by June 8, 1890, both the first movement and the finale were fully sketched. He had hoped to continue work in July and August, but further composition was delayed until October. Nevertheless, by 4 November the entire symphony was sketched, and within three days the first movement was scored up to the recapitulation
Recapitulation
Recapitulation may refer to:* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...
.
Tchaikovsky had already offered to conduct the premiere of the symphony at a charity concert in Moscow the following February. However, after another enforced break, the composer took another look at the sketches and experienced total disenchantment. "It's composed simply for the sake of composing something; there's nothing at all interesting or sympathetic in it," he wrote to his nephew Vladimir Davydov
Vladimir Davydov
Vladimir Davydov Vladimir Davydov Vladimir Davydov (December 14, 1871 (O.S. December 2) – December 27, 1906 (O.S, December 14) was the second son of Lev and Alexandra Davidov and the favorite nephew of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who called him "Bob".-Life:...
on December 16, 1892. "I've decided to discard and forget it ... Perhaps," he added, though how he can hardly have realized how precisely, "the subject still has the potential to stir my imagination."
Davydov's response came quickly and, to the composer's surprise, very strongly worded. In a letter dated December 19, 1892, Davydov wrote, "I feel sorry of course, for the symphony that you have cast down from the cliff as they used to do with the children of Sparta, because it seemed to you deformed, whereas it is probably as much a work of genius as the first five."
... Versus the Need to Express
Tchaikovsky gave up on the symphony because he now found the music impersonal, lacking the introspectionIntrospection
Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...
Tchaikovsky felt a symphony needed urgently. He had no wish to continue making, as he said, "meaningless harmonies and a rhythmical scheme expressive of nothing".
However, Davidov's comments spurred Tchaikovsky to reuse the sketches instead of totally writing them off. The music may have meant nothing to him on a personal level emotionally, but that did not mean it was worthless. The main theme was highly attractive, skillfully worked out, extroverted. When worked out by a composer whose handling of such a theme could become a delight to hear and, for the musicologist, to analyze, the results could become extremely worthwhile after all.
More importantly, the composer did not abandon the thought of writing a new symphony based on the program he conceived. Though his efforts with the E flat symphony did not turn out as planned, they influenced his conception not long afterwards of what would become the Pathétique symphony
Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October of that year, nine days before his death...
. Tchaikovsky converted the symphony's first movement into a one-movement piano concerto (published as Op. 75); after his death, two other movements were completed in a piano concerto version by the Russian composer Sergei Taneyev
Sergei Taneyev
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev , was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author.-Life:...
, who added them to Tchaikovsky's first movement to produce a full-scale concerto. Known as "Andante" and "Finale," the Tchaikovsky-Taneyev movements are now known as Tchaikovsky's Opus 79.
Bogatyryov reconstruction
A reconstruction of the original symphony from the sketches and various reworkings was accomplished during 1951–1955 by the Soviet composer Semyon Bogatyryov (1890–1960), who brought the symphony into finished, fully orchestrated form and issued the score as Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No 7 in E-flat major."Bogatyryov utilized primary sources, including Tchaikovsky's initial rough sketches, the full orchestral manuscript of about half of the first movement, and the manuscript and printed score of the third piano concerto.
The first movement of the piano concerto was fully orchestrated by the composer, while the second and third movements were later orchestrated by Sergei Taneyev
Sergei Taneyev
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev , was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author.-Life:...
, Tchaikovsky's friend and fellow composer.
While the first movement sketches and completed version for piano and orchestra were essentially complete, Bogatyryov found that only 81 of the 204 bars of the second movement were in Tchaikovsky's hand. Here he utilized Tchaikovsky's piano score for the Andante for Piano and Orchestra, Taneyev's orchestration, and a very rough draft by Tchaikovsky.
For the third movement, Bogatyryov followed the insistence of the composer's brother Modeste that this should be a scherzo
Scherzo
A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
and orchestrated a scherzo from Tchaikovsky's Op. 72 piano pieces, as well as more sketches by the composer. Remarkably, the piece fits neatly between the second and fourth movements and even includes final chords that are echoed by the beginning of the fourth movement.
The reconstruction of the fourth movement was based on the piano score for the Finale for Piano and Orchestra, the composer's sketches, and the published orchestration by Taneyev.
External links
- Symphony in E flat at Tchaikovsky Research.