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First Unitarian Church
June 16, 2024
"Music is enough for a lifetime — but a lifetime is not enough for music."
I imagine that most, if not all, of the music-lovers assembled in the First Unitarian Church on Sunday would readily concur with Sergei Rachmaninov's bon mot.
Personally, I have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with the music of Rachmaninov. The phenomenon of the "one-work composer" — a composer known primarily, no matter how prolific they were, for one or two works: the obvious examples include Holst (The Planets), Dukas (L'Apprenti sorcier), Vivaldi (The Four Seasons) and Bruch (Violin Concerto No.1) — is well known.
In addition to this category, I also have a personal list of composers only one (or two) of whose works I enjoy and top of this list would be César Franck: I am indifferent to most of his output, positively detest the Piano Quintet, but absolutely adore his Violin Sonata.
Rachmaninov (we can discuss the spelling/transliteration of his surname later, if you insist) is another example, albeit somewhat less extreme. While I can certainly enjoy a good performance of one of his blockbusters (the second and third piano concertos, the Paganini Rhapsody), his piano music by-and-large does not move me and, try as I might, his symphonies do nothing for me.
But (and you knew there was a "but" coming), the Symphonic Dances, his last and for many greatest work, is one I would travel some distance to hear — admittedly, the First Unitarian Church is not that far, and is even closer since our move last year, but the point remains.
So, when I saw that Conrad Tao was closing his recital with a solo piano arrangement of the work, an arrangement, furthermore, of whose existence I had hitherto been blissfully unaware, the decision to attend was taken out of my hands.
The Symphonic Dances (we'll get to them, don't fret) were the culmination of a fascinatingly unusual (or perhaps unusually fascinating) programme, which placed Rachmaninov in the context of the Jazz Age in his adopted homeland.
This was clearly a project close to Tao's heart and one he apparently could hardly wait to begin: after a brief spoken introduction, he eschewed the almost de rigeur adjustment of the piano bench, sitting and unleashing a torrent of notes almost in a single motion. And his opening piece, one of the Op.32 Preludes, set the stage for the rest of the recital: Tao is a larger-than-life, charismatic player possessing an enormous palette of tonal colours, as this piece clearly demonstrated.
In 1939, Duke Ellington offered composer Billy Strayhorn a job, sending him money to pay for his ticket from Pittsburgh to New York, and including directions to get to his home once he had arrived in New York, directions which began "Take the A train". (Admittedly, there are other, differing, accounts.)
Strayhorn soon composed Take the A Train, yet considered it "an old thing" and too similar to music by Fletcher Henderson, and consigned it to the garbage, from where it was rescued by Mercer Ellingon (Duke's son); it became the Duke Ellingon band's signature tune, twice entering the Hit Parade, and in 1999 was chosen by National Public Radio as one of the 100 most important American music works of the century.
Tao imbued the piece with plenty of bounce, as the delicious melody wove its way between increasingly complex arabesques.
In the very same year that Ellington employed Strayhorn, MGM executives were watching an advance screening of a new musical film. One song, however, caused dissension: Louis B. Mayer thought it was too sad, others thought it slowed down the movie, yet another enquired why the song was being sung in a farmyard.
Eventually Associate Producer Arthur Freed presented Mayer with an ultimatum: "The songs stays — or I go".
And so it was that "Over the Rainbow" became the best-loved song in "The Wizard of Oz", won the 1939 Oscar for Best Original Song and became signature tune of the singer born Frances Ethel Gumm, for the rest of her life. (Interestingly, Judy Garland was only the studio's third choice to play Dorothy: 20th Century Fox refused to loan Shirley Temple and the second choice, Canadian-born Deanna Durbin, was unavailable.)
If I may interject a personal note: this is not a song which has ever been a particular favourite of mine, but it was the very last music my mother played on her CD player before she died and the last song played at her funeral. So for the last decade-and-a-half or so, I find I am unable to listen to it with anything approaching equanimity.
Even in Art Tatum's extraordinarily dexterous and, one might almost say florid style. Here Tao had me wondering just how many hands he had.
These were just some of the highlights of the first "half" of the programme — others included Tao's superb improvisations on two of the variations from the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini — and while it may have been the longest first half in Eine Kleine history (I am assured that this was the case) not once did my interest flag, not even during Stephen Sondheim's In Buddy's Eyes, although even Tao's brilliant and beautiful playing still could not convince me that Sondheim's reputation is deserved. Ah well, probably my loss.
After the interval came what was for me, as you may by now have gathered, the Main Event. As is well known, the first version of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances was for two pianos, the orchestral version following within a few months and it was this first version which two of the twentieth century's greatest pianists, Vladimir Horowitz and Rachmaninov himself, performed in August 1942 at a party in Beverly Hills. It was presumably shortly thereafter that the composer suggested to RCA that they recorded the duo's performance. RCA, hopefully to their everlasting shame, turned him down. Within the year Rachmaninov was dead and the opportunity lost forever.
Tao performed the Symphonic Dances in a recent arrangement for solo piano by Inon Barnatan, an arrangement inspired by a pirated recording of the composer himself playing it for conductor Eugene Ormandy.
The work's opening movement is headed by one of the most enigmatic tempo indications in musical history, and people are still debating exactly what the composer meant by "Non allegro". The Italian translates literally as "not cheerful", although, of course, "allegro" has, in music, long meant lively or quick. There are those who believe Rachmaninov intended the literal, as opposed to musical, meaning; others think that it was more of an aide memoire from the composer to himself, reminding him that, whatever indication he eventually wrote, it should not be allegro. Certainly the only performance I have ever encountered which seemed to follow the musical meaning is a 1964 aircheck by the great William Steinberg and the New York Philharmonic.
Tao took what one might call the middle way: neither too fast nor too slow and with some positively exquisite rubato, The central section is slower and was beautifully shaped and clothed in gorgeous tone colours, although not even Tao's palette could quite match up to the alto saxophone Rachmaninov used in the orchestral version, which features some of his most colourful and inventive orchestration. The accelerando from the central section was meticulously handled.
In the mysterious second movement, the spontaneity of Tao's playing almost felt as if he were composing the music on the spot, or perhaps encountering it for the first time.
The finale was propulsive and energetic to a fault — in the louder passages one could actually see the lid of the piano shaking, not something I can recall ever witnessing before.
As exciting a way to close a fascinating recital as one could wish for.
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