Clarinet Concerto*
           Joan Tower (1938-)

               notes to be published in March 2008

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op.27
          Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
          Composed: 1907

Sergei Rachmaninoff was one of the last great virtuoso pianist composers. His renown as a concert artist is still very much alive today, for surely there are many in present-day concert audiences who remember the tall, dour man who brooded over the keys for, seemingly, an unconscionable time before commencing his performance. Rachmaninoff was an important composer, also, although the earlier 20th century's antipathy for post-romantic music has relegated most of his works, except for the piano concertos, to temporary oblivion. But now that taste appears to be turning backward somewhat, a revival of Rachmaninoff's orchestral compositions seems timely.

Rachmaninoff was Russian to the core, trained in both the St. Petersburg and Moscow conservatories, a near-protégé of Tchaikovsky, and one of the most respected and popular composers even today in Russia, though he never returned to his native land after the October Revolution of 1917. Tchaikovsky's music undoubtedly was one of his models, although he admired such others of his fellow countrymen as Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov. His style is lyric, often melancholy, and rhapsodic in the epic sweep of his lines. Needless to say, minor keys are most often his choice, and the heroic brass is important in his orchestration.

The Second Symphony, written in 1907 and first performed at St. Petersburg, is, at the moment, the only one of Rachmaninoff's symphonies to survive in the repertoire. His First Symphony, written in 1897 and also performed at St. Petersburg, so displeased the composer that he destroyed the manuscript. The orchestral parts survived, however, and the Soviets reconstructed the score; they performed the Symphony at Moscow two years after the composer's death, but it seems to have lapsed again. The same fate befell his Third Symphony, premièred at Philadelphia in 1936.

The Second Symphony has a conventional first movement, opening with a stately Introduction (Largo) consisting of a somber phrase in low strings, answered by a contrasting phrase in woodwinds and horns. The principal portion of the movement (Allegro) is a classical sonata-allegro design with first and second subjects, a massive development section, and reprise of the opening. The second movement (Allegro molto) is a brilliant Scherzo. A vigorous theme in horn is accompanied by strings and winds. There follows a melody in strings, then a canonic episode. A lyric Adagio is shared by strings and winds. The Finale, following the model of so many 19th century symphonies, is a fantasy of recall, in which themes from previous movements alternate with fresh materials for a typical cyclic close.

Louise Cuyler