Rachmaninov:Piano Concerto 'No.5'

Wednesday, February 6th 2008

RACHMANINOV-WARENBERG

Piano Concerto in E minor
based on the Second Symphony
Premiere Recording

Alexander Warenberg
Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy
Pieter van Winkel
in conversation with Ates Orga


How do you turn the most famous post-Tchaikovsky Tsarist symphony into a piano concerto?

Indeed, one of the most fantastic of Rachmaninov’s works… The idea wasn’t mine, it was Pieter van Winkel’s. And at first, I must say, I was very, very sceptical. Nevertheless we agreed to attempt the first movement. I was careful with the text, keeping cuts to the minimum. By the time we came to the finale, however, I was much freer, cutting the music from 15 minutes or even longer to ten. I had to because I wanted an absolute emotional explosion in this movement, pianistically and symphonically. The longer the duration the more impossible was it for me to achieve this climax. Particularly after a long first movement at 19 minutes and a middle one at 13. For this reason the second of Rachmaninov’s three subjects had to be removed. I felt it was too long and redundant for a concerto. In the Symphony it’s great. In a concerto it’s illogical. As the music now stands we have a hero and his beloved and the avalanche of their passion.

Do you see the music programmatically?

Yes, it’s a fairy tale. Pushkin’s Ruslan and Ludmila. ‘The ways and deeds of days gone by.’ From first note to last, the whole concerto. The poem’s every canto, person or scene is somewhere in the music. Ruslan, the warrior ‘inflamed with love’ – prince. Ludmila, his destiny – princess. Nahina, the young beauty/old crone – the ‘eastern’ piano turns added to the first movement development. The middle movement invokes Ludmila, ‘despairing, tearful, poor Ludmila’ – borne away on her bridal night ‘by some strange and evil power,’ her thoughts and dreams about Ruslan, her nightmares (scherzo), the spell that puts her to sleep (reprise). The opening of the finale pictures Ruslan. The introduction to the first echoes the poem’s prologue - ‘the breath of old Russ’. Some of my piano patterns intentionally conjure Pushkin’s water imagery (just before the end of the first movement exposition, for instance [128ff]). I’ve always thought of the Second Symphony in this way, and in working out the concerto, transforming the material into a kind of opera, the story supported my imagination – as well as giving me a way back to my youth.

Your transcription abbreviates the music into a three-movement work. Why didn’t you keep the big four-movement original as your basis?

All Rachmaninov’s concertos are in three movements. From the beginning it was obvious that any transcription of the symphony had to be in the same form. I took the decision in five minutes. I didn’t change my mind. I knew immediately that the middle of the second movement had to draw on the scherzo, and I knew which section of the scherzo I would use. Being very familiar with the symphony, it was clear what would work in a concerto context and what would have to go. I concentrated on these ideas from the beginning. Only the first cadenza came later, using (omitted) material from the introduction and written under the influence of the alternative big one in the Third Concerto. I arrived at the first draft of the solo piano part very quickly, in just six months, and a first complete text in 18 months – though that was around 70% different from what we now have. How it should be was clear to me from the start, even if various difficult passages took shape only subsequently. I worked on the orchestration for about two years, sometimes for 20/22 hours a day. I looked for a lot of colours and ways to emphasise them. Musically and aesthetically colour is very important to me. I changed a lot.

How?

Modifying the orchestration, though not the size of orchestra, re-composing passages, however slightly … Certain sections of the symphony are good as piano solos. But in others the orchestra is the better ‘soloist’. For a lot of the time I left my purely orchestral passages as Rachmaninov wrote them. But those involving piano, or transferred entirely to the piano, had to be re-assessed. Broadly speaking, about 40% of the instrumentation is mine, not Rachmaninov’s.

Cuts aside, comparing your arrangement with the 1960 Moscow edition of the Symphony, basis of the Boosey & Hawkes score, shows occasional melodic re-directioning, changes of harmony, alterations of bass and treble lines, registral transfers, and rhythmic divergencies.

Rachmaninov’s harmonies, orchestrally, are inspirations of genius. But bringing a piano into the picture calls for them to be occasionally modified. Where I change bass lines or chord/cadential progressions I’ve done so consciously, not for my own gratification – these harmonies have been famous for a century – but because I felt it necessary to improve the sound and balance. Musicians will notice the differences, most listeners will not. I’ve endeavoured throughout to be faithful to the original and to the Rachmaninov style. Every note of mine could be his. 100%.

The Symphony is reduced by over a third, with the exposition repeat in the first movement and much of the second omitted. Some of the cuts follow those traditionally adopted by conductors in the Soviet Union, Europe and America up to the early 1970s. Others appear to be your own.

Yes. For instance, the short finale cadenza needed an orchestral cut. Likewise the lead-up to the cadenza in the first. I’ve also reduced certain phrase lengths where I felt they were too long for the piano. Even leaving out a bar can help – for example at the end of the slow movement.

The licences you take, slight or substantial, suggest that in undertaking this commission you’ve made fundamentally compositional decisions.

Absolutely. In the first solo of the Adagio, for example, I’ve introduced a new inner voice. I don’t follow the viola part of the orchestra, I lose it. For me it was too much. Throughout this work I haven’t set out to make a piano reduction, an arrangement, but, rather, to create an independent piano entity, an equal polyphony of separate lines in the Rachmaninov style based on my experience of playing and studying his works over many years. Often this will mean that a first voice may be Rachmaninov’s, while the second, third and fourth, or more, pianistically or orchestrally, will be mine. My music … but following the logic and language of the original.

Which presumably applies also to the first movement cadenza?

Yes, it’s my composition - combining Rachmaninov’s material with my own, as in the second section [Presto]which is not borrowed. Democratic voicing, creating a (complex) dialogue distinct from (simple) melody and accompaniment, is critical.

You seem to invest the Adagio melody with a lot of importance?

I incorporate it in the main cadenza [left hand cantabile, 15ff, modalised], and, like Rachmaninov, in the finale. I also treat it fugally and in augmented rhythm in the scherzo section of the Adagio – hidden away in the texture. I hear and feel it like a leitmotif.

Most analysts would argue that the leitmotif seeding the Second Symphony is found in the seven-note cello/bass theme of the introduction to the first movement - ‘breath of old Russ’. Here, though, you’ve suddenly brought another character into the drama – ‘Ludmila’. Re-composition, re-focussing, well beyond arrangement …

Yes. My idea entirely.

You describe your work as ‘Piano Concerto based on the Second Symphony’. Do you see it as a ‘conversation’ between piano and orchestra, or a ‘combat’ alla Tchaikovsky B flat minor?

In Tchaikovsky dialogue doesn’t matter so much. The Very Important Person will always be the piano. With Rachmaninov, like Brahms, the opposite is the case. There’s neither first nor second priority, just first and first. A dialogue between the parties. That’s what my arrangement tries to emphasise.

The popularist assumption that Rachmaninov’s concertos are piano dominant, orchestra subservient compositions isn’t yours, then?

No. Musically, I see both piano and orchestra, soloist and conductor, as equal partners. Give and take.


Rachmaninov tolerated cuts in the Second Symphony, reducing it substantially. Yet the story goes that when Eugene Ormandy asked him for a list, he sanctioned just two bars. Given our current aversion to abbreviation or the omission of repeats, what do you feel about the cuts Alexander Warenberg has made in his re-modelling of the work as a concerto?

Well, you must bear in mind that Alexander didn’t simply want to copy the symphony adding a piano obbligato. His intention was to use it to write (quasi ‘helped by Rachmaninov’) a new piano concerto. Remember the title is ‘Piano Concerto based on the Second Symphony’. If one expects a work close to the symphony and Rachmaninov’s original ideas, then these cuts wouldn’t be advisable. If, however, you listen to the piece without any expectations – pre-knowledge of the Second Symphony - then they form part of a convincing conception.

Do you regret the omission of most of the scherzo – over 82%? Likewise the martial second subject of the finale?

I’d have very much liked it if both were still be part of the work because they include such great music. But the fact that we have a new piano concerto, with so much of the universe of Rachmaninov’s genius in it, plus a lot of effective, brilliant new Warenberg ‘inventions’, is more important. His work is logical, his ‘re-composition’ convincing, and his piano writing genuinely ‘Warenbergian’. The first movement cadenza is excellent pastiche.

All the great pianist-transcribers from Liszt to Busoni, Godowsky and Rachmaninov have left their stamp and personality on the music they’ve touched. How do you rate Warenberg’s undertaking?

It’s very exciting to have a concerto based on Rachmaninov’s ideas. A ‘Warenberg concerto’ that’s neither Rachmaninov concerto nor Rachmaninov symphony. That’s enough! A lot of composers and instrumentalists today are so busy being faithful to the text that they forget to love it. To be faithful doesn’t necessarily mean to love. But to love means to be faithful [… to the object, the spirit of something] … Alexander loves the Second Symphony and is a great Rachmaninov admirer. It comes across clearly. I think the work stands a good chance to catch the public imagination. It’s a great feeling, as a soloist, to play the wonderful first theme of the second movement. For me the symphony will always be one of the greatest orchestral masterworks ever written - and Alexander’s composition is a means for us pianists to get closer to it. With its virtuoso, brilliant, powerful piano part, I think the concerto would be a good competition piece for young artists to display their individuality … because as yet there’s no ‘traditional way’, good or bad, of playing it.

Do we need a ‘Rach Five’ so to speak - especially since One and Four get so rarely programmed?

No. But we need a ‘Warenberg concerto’. And we need composers with the courage to write what they feel inside, as Rachmaninov did. Ravel once said he didn’t much like the contemporary music of his time because he was only touched intellectually by it, not emotionally … I think he was right. Alexander’s someone who uses his heart, not just his head. That’s to be treasured.


The idea of arranging Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony for piano and orchestra came to me in 2000, during the Christmas holidays. I know and love this music very much. It’s one of Rachmaninov’s best large-scale, big-structured pieces. Whenever I hear Rachmaninov I imagine a piano, not necessarily a big orchestra or something else. His musical personality was so naturally suited to the instrument. At certain moments, listening to the symphony, I heard, I kept fancying, a piano. What a pity – such beautiful music but not for piano! I have nothing against the score as such, even if the orchestration can at times be heavy. Yet … yet isn’t something missing? Listening to it with other ears, I imagined what it would be like with a concert-grand – and I thought, goodness, this could really work. Arranging a Beethoven or Tchaikovsky symphony like this would be ridiculous, they’re not that kind of music, but Rachmaninov Two is different. I’m not saying it’s a closeted concerto, but I can envisage a soloist as part of it - in the finale for instance. The idea persisted. I wanted to pursue it. But I had to find a pianist, a composer, equal to the task. So I asked my old teacher, Alexander Warenberg. I felt he was the only person with the capacity and imagination. At first he thought the proposition impossible, even crazy. But, applying fresh ears, getting away from preconceptions and the orchestral canvas he’d always lived with, he began to re-think and re-listen. And new ideas came to him. Naturally I was curious about the outcome because I’d never ever had anything that specific in mind. Just a concept. He, though, knew exactly what he wanted, re-working the music with well-balanced proportions and aiming for a virtuoso piano part very much in the Rachmaninov style without being imitative or parodistic. The first results were exciting. Reaching fruition has taken a long time, especially since we needed the permission of the composer’s Estate and grandson, Alexandre Rachmaninoff. But I’m delighted to now have this recording, as well as a published score from Boosey & Hawkes.


Sergey Rachmaninov (Rachmaninov) (1873-1943)
Piano Concerto no5
Symphony No. 2 in E minor Op. 27
1. Largo-allegro moderato 18:56
2. Adagio-molto allegro 13:15
3. Allegro vivace 10:05

Total: 42:24

arranged as Piano Concerto, by Alexander Warenberg

Recording:26-28 June 2007,Concert Hall,Ostrava,Czech Republic
Engineer:Jaroslav Stranavsky
Editing:Jaroslav Stranavsky,Peter Arts
Exective producer:Pieter van Winkel