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Alexandr Tikhonovich Grechaninov (1864-1956) Symphony No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 6 Symphony No. 2 in A, Op. 27 "Pastorale" Alexandr Tikhonovich...

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Alexandr Tikhonovich Grechaninov (1864-1956)

Symphony No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 6

Symphony No. 2 in A, Op. 27 "Pastorale"

Alexandr Tikhonovich Grechaninov was born in Moscow in 1864, the son of a barely literate tradesman.

At school he sang as a soloist in the chapel choir and at the age of fourteen began piano lessons, encouraged by his sister-in-law. In 1881, in spite of his father's opposition, he entered the piano class of Tchaikovsky's friend, Nikolay Kashkin, at the Conservatory in Moscow. In 1885 he became a pupil of Vasily Safonov, taking lessons in composition from Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev and lessons in fugue from Arensky. His active career as a composer began with a setting of a poem by Lermontov in 1889.

In 1890 Grechaninov left Moscow Conservatory and moved to St. Petersburg, where a scholarship enabled him to study under Rimsky-Korsakov at the Conservatory. He married in 1891 and had his first significant success the following year, when his Concert Overture was performed. In 1894 his first string quartet won a prize in the Belyayev Chamber Music Competition, an award he was to win again in 1914 and 1915 with his second and third quartets. His Symphony No. 1 in B minor, Opus 6, was completed and first performed in 1895, under the direction of Rimsky-Korsakov.

It should be remarked, however, that Rimsky-Korsakov was later reported by his assiduous biographer Yastrebtsev, to have had a low opinion of the work.

"It's really not good", he is reported as saying, "if someone, who has a natural inclination to compose in the style of Rubinstein and writes fairly well in this style, suddenly takes a fancy to Borodin and begins to compose in his style: it won't work". The original Scherzo, in 5/4, was later replaced by the present more orthodox movement.

During the years immediately following, which he spent in Moscow, Grechaninov busied himself with his opera Dobrinya Nikitich, which was first staged at the Bol'shoy in 1903 with Shalyapin in the title-r�le. He also wrote incidental music for Stanislavsky's production of Aleksey Tolstoy's play Tsar Fedor and for the same writer's Death of Ivan the Terrible. His own second opera was based on Maeterlinck's play Sister Beatrice, which was rejected by the Imperial Theatre in spite of the support of the Tsar, but received three performances from another company, before religious objections caused its withdrawal.

As a teacher Grechaninov was involved with the work of the Berkman Music School, the Gnesin Institute and the Moscow Conservatory, and in this connection wrote a considerable amount of children's music. At the same time he received an annual stipend in recognition of his services to church music, although his later use of instruments in liturgical compositions made its church use impossible. The Revolution of 1917 put an end to his church pension and the uncertainty of the times led him to seek a future abroad, at first in London and in Prague. In 1925 he moved to Paris, where he remained until the threatening situation of 1939 persuaded him to seek safety in the United States of America, a country he had already visited on a number of occasions for a series of concert tours. In 1946 he became an American citizen and died in New York ten years later.

While recent critics have found much to admire in Grechaninov's children's music, in his arrangements of songs from the minority peoples of the Soviet Union and in his liturgical music, little serious attention has been accorded his more substantial orchestral compositions. Immediate posterity tended to follow Rimsky-Korsakov in rejecting the very technical competence that marked the work of Anton Rubinstein and that of many of the younger composers trained at the newly established Conservatories in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Such proficiency was tainted for some with the cosmopolitan or German, and for a later generation marred by allegedly bourgeois tendencies. In his First Symphony, which displays this very competence in structure and orchestration, there is a winning use of Russian thematic material. Nevertheless the work lacks the fashionable primitive crudity of the dilettante Nationalists. There is a fine Russian first subject, heard at the start from the lower strings, and a gently contrasting second theme. The cellos and double basses introduce the principal theme of the slow movement, while the G major Scherzo allows the violas to suggest the vigorous rhythm of the movement, before the entry of the violins with the main theme, to which there are later contrasts of mood and key. The finale asserts a triumphant B major, its emphatic and brief introduction followed by a lighter theme offered tentatively by the strings, but growing in intensity, in a movement that offers an appealing conclusion to a symphony of obvious charm.

Symphony No. 2 in A, Opus 27, was completed in 1909. It was to be followed by three more symphonies, the Fourth introduced to America by Barbirolli in 1942 and the Fifth given at the Philadelphia Youth Concert in 1946. The Second Symphony is of more substantial length than the First and one may detect something of contemporary Western European influence in its harmonies. The first movement carries the title Pastorale and opens in the key of A minor with an ominous enough figure, which gradually begins to assume a gentler, more lyrical significance, until it is replaced by the French horn's second theme, a melody thoroughly Russian in contour. The material introduced forms the basis of what follows, constituting a very Russian kind of Pastorale.

The slow movement moves to the key of C sharp minor, the clarinet presenting the lyrical first theme, to a syncopated accompaniment from second violins and violas, while the French horn offers a romantic subsidiary element. This proceeds in a manner worthy of Rachmaninov to a major second melody from the violas. The Scherzo breaks the mood with its opening bar, shifting in key to D major. The first Trio offers a contrasting oboe melody in B major, while the second Trio moves to G minor in a violin theme, accompanied at first by the strings, both providing an opportunity for an excursion into the Russian countryside. The finale seems about to move further away from the original tonality, in a movement of rich enough variety. Here, as throughout the symphony, Grechaninov handles the orchestra with assurance, making characteristic Russian use of the wind instruments, as he had learned from Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg. The symphony makes an interesting and attractive addition to the orchestral repertoire.

CSSR State Philharmonic Orchestra (Kosice)

The East Slovakian town of Kosice boasts a long and distinguished musical tradition, as part of a province that once provided Vienna with musicians. The State Philharmonic Orchestra is of relatively recent origin and was established in 1968 under the conductor Bystrik Rezucha. Subsequent principal conductors have included Stanislav Macura and Ladislav Slovak, the latter succeeded in 1985 by his pupil Richard Zimmer. The orchestra has toured widely in Eastern and Western Europe and plays an important part in the Kosice Musical Spring and the Kosice International Organ Festival.

Richard Edlinger

The Austrian conductor Richard Edlinger was born in Bregenz in 1958 and directed his first concerts at the age of seventeen. He completed his studies at the Vienna Academy in conducting and composition in 1982, by which time he had already acquired considerable professional experience. He was the youngest finalist in the 1983 Guido Cantelli Conductors' Competition at La Scala, Milan.

Johannes Wildner

Johannes Wildner was born in the Austrian resort of M�rzzuschlag in 1956 and studied violin and conducting, taking his diploma at the Vienna Musikhochschule and proceeding to a doctorate in musicology. A member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Johannes Wildner has toured widely as leader of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra Johann Strauss Ensemble and of the Vienna Mozart Academy. As a conductor he has directed the Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Emilia Romagna Arturo Toscanini, the Budapest State Opera Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic and the Malmo Symphony Orchestra. He conducted performances of the Vienna Volksoper in the autumn of 1989 and has been invited to Japan, China, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Italy.

Disc 1

Symphony No. 1, B minor, Op. 6

(more info)

Composed by: Alexandr Tikhonovich Grechaninov
Conducted by: Richard Edlinger
Produced by: Rowlands, Phil

Allegro non troppo - 9:40
Andante sostenuto assai - 8:24
Molto vivace - 6:11
Allegro spirituoso - 9:27

Symphony No. 2, A major, Op. 27

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Alexandr Tikhonovich Grechaninov
Conducted by: Johannes Wildner

Pastorale - 7:14
Andante - 10:15
Scherzo - 6:55
Finale - 10:22

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Composer(s):
Grechaninov, Alexandr Tikhonovich

Conductor(s):
Edlinger, Richard; Wildner, Johannes

Orchestra(s):
Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra