Iestyn Morris — Romances

A.K. Tolstoy was an enduring source of texts in Tchaikovsky’s output. Conducting a 12 year affair before marrying in 1851, much of his verse in this period was devoted to the philosophy of love and infidelity. Tchaikovsky’s A tear trembles Op.6 No.4 takes two verses of Tolstoy’s five verse poem. Whilst he claims to see a bigger picture of boundless love (of God, into which all will be embraced), what we see is her hurt, in the image of a jealous tear, and are left asking ourselves how convincing is this cold philosophy in the face of genuine human emotion.

What Rachmaninov knew of this lengthy affair is unknown, but he was struck by an intimate occasional verse from A.K. Tolstoy to his lover (published in a literary journal of 1858) and drew out its inescapably heart-breaking text in The world would see thee smile Op.14 No.7. Leaving the rising vocal line hanging, Rachmaninov’s portrayal of unattainable resolution is perhaps an interpretation where she has left the mortal coil and will be forever out of reach.

Nature was also a great source of inspiration to Rachmaninov. In Moscow, after long months of winter, spring comes as a violent liberation. Meltwater from fields is not so much seen but rather heard. In Spring Waters Op.14 No.11, the word “schumjat” at the end of the second line, literally means ‘to make noise’ (in this sense ‘proclaiming’ the arrival of spring). Rachmaninov, famed for his exceptionally large hands, was known as one of the finest virtuoso pianists

of his age. His fiendishly difficult accompaniment trippingly depicts this moment of meltwater rushing under the surface ice and is a celebration of life; a moment which would traditionally be met by dancing in the streets, preferably barefoot.

The underlying mystery of Morning Op.4 No.2 is that no-one knows who the poet was. Sources actually cannot agree on whether M.L. Janov was in fact female (Maria Yanova). The fact that this song incorporates both the female image of the dawn “zarja” descending to Earth in the first half of the song, with the tentative chromatic rising phrase of the masculine day “Djen” in the second, only adds to this intrigue.

A decade later, Rachmaninov championed another female poet in Lilacs Op.21 No.5. Ekaterina Beketova wrote children’s stories, lyrics about nature and produced translations from five languages. The images she depicts, on a walk in the cool of the morning, centre around a Russian superstition that it is good luck to find a five-petalled lilac bloom. With a touch of melancholy, Rachmaninov conjures the idea of a walk with masterful economy of writing, as the narrator goes in pursuit of “shchastje”, which in Russian has the double meaning of ‘good luck’, as well as ‘happiness’.

Rachmaninov was also not to shy away from political ideology. Senyon Nadson was the son of a baptised Jew and a Russian Orthodox mother, whose poetry appealed to the radical intelligentsia of the turbulent 1880s, which saw the rapid spread of Marxist ideas, the rise of revolutionary populism as well as increased persecution of jews. Despite dying tragically young, Nadson’s poetry became a bestseller in his lifetime. Rachmaninov seized upon a set of fragments of text, feverishly written in the two years before the poet’s death. The central tone in Tis Time! Op.14 No.12, is predominantly one of suffering and struggle. It calls for a ‘Prophet’ to show the way – an ironic sentiment in the light of history, but its sincerity is a call to arms and hence it is unsurprising that this song was largely forgotten in Soviet Russia.

Now we come to some lesser-known composers, who deserve far more recognition. Sergei Taneev was a former tutor (and distant relative) of Rachmaninov, so it can be assumed they had intimate knowledge of each other’s work. In a direct comparison, we can see two settings of the same poem: In the early 1890s Konstantin Balmont translated Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘The Isle’, describing this example of English romanticism as a “tender cameo”. To Shelley’s descriptive imagery, Balmont added a slumbering final line which imbues the whole poem with a more emotive, dreamlike quality. Rachmaninov published his setting almost immediately as The Little Island Op.14 No.2, and it endures as the more famous treatment of the text. Taneev, however, waited a further ten years to publish his Op.17 No.1 and it can be argued that the former tutor is more successful at invoking this dreamy closing mood with a meditative, gently rippling final passage from the line “here no storm rages”.

Another former pupil of Taneev in Moscow was Alexander Gretchaninov. He moved to St Petersburg in 1890, so also studied orchestration and composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, who recognised his prodigious talent and supported him financially. They remained firm friends and Rimsky-Korsakov’s work heavily informed that of his pupil; he even conducted several premieres of Gretchaninov’s symphonies. Only achieving international recognition for his instrumental writing, he was a formidable and popular writer of song (his settings of Baudelaire are particularly worth exploring). In the late 1890s he began producing serious works for the Orthodox Church in the form of large choral settings of the liturgy, bringing a more serious note to his secular works. Op.15 consists of just two songs – a traditional folk song (“Evening Bells”) and the emphatic setting of P. Kovalevsky’s Death Op.15 No.2, which is as uncompromising as it sounds!

Taneev also taught Nicolai Medtner, convincing him to dispense with a performing career as a concert pianist, in favour of composition. Not sharing Tchaikovsky’s need to set texts in translation, Medtner spent much of his early career dedicating whole opuses to German poets. For this reason, the three examples from Op.15 (settings of Goethe) are the only songs not to be sung in Russian. With the world heading inexorably towards the horror of WWI, however, he turned to Pushkin for Op.29. The Rose (No.6) uses the imagery of flowers to deal with the passing years and the extraordinary Invocation (No.7) summons unnatural forces to call to a lover beyond the grave.

In the first half of the C20th, interest in exploration of folk song was universal. In 1944 Sergei Prokofiev published Op.104 (a set of twelve Russian folk songs), which deserves to be far better known. Unlike the universal nature of folk song in most cultures, Russian folk song has the interesting quality of being specific to gender. Folk song sung by men (who would be called up to go to war or had

to leave home to make a living) tend to be full of nostalgia and longing for home. On the other hand, folk songs sung by women, tend to complain about how hard life is or sing longingly for their loved one (who is invariably far away). All the songs in Op.104 are arrangements of folk songs traditionally sung by women, but with kind permission from the composer’s grandson, texts have been altered where necessary, so that the voice is grammatically from a male viewpoint. It is the first time these songs have been recorded with this interpretation. Mostly this treatment has little effect on the overall sentiment of the song, however, sometimes, such as in the instance of Katerina (No.11), the suggestion that the eponymous heroine should leave her cares behind and go for a walk with this male companion, takes on an invigorating new meaning!

This project is grateful to the Oleg Prokofiev Trust, for its invaluable support.