SYMPHONIC FAIRY TALES
I am in no condition to cope with such a
mush-headed genius.”
Actually, there should have been little
to bother Rimsky about the Concerto,
for it is a very attractive work in a rather
conservative style. At this stage of his
career, Scriabin adored Chopin above
all composers, and the piano part here
is heavily influenced by that great
keyboard composer’s graceful, floridly
embellished style.
Another surprising thing about this
concerto is the reticence of the piano
part. Though it is very difficult to play,
it lacks obvious virtuoso display— even
a traditional first-movement cadenza
with which the soloist can show his
chops. Frequently, the often very
beautiful orchestral parts threaten to
swamp the soloist.
Indeed, the first movement, in the
home key of F-sharp minor and a loosely
shaped sonata form, is not the kind of
heroic opening one would expect to hear
in a Romantic-era concerto, especially
one from Russia. Instead, it suggests
chamber music, with various orchestral
instruments (especially the horn) vying
for attention with the piano. Three
notes descending stepwise form its core
motive, heard immediately in the horns,
then used by the pianist to generate his
pensive, winding principal theme and
finally proclaimed rhapsodically by
the violins. This descending idea will
run throughout this movement and
play a prominent role in the second
as well. Notice the pianist’s sparkling
contribution in a faster scherzo style; this
delicately etched music, lovingly modeled
on Chopin, stands in for a second theme.
Movement two is a beguiling theme
and variations. The string section presents
the theme, which may date back to
Scriabin’s childhood; lovely and slightly
melancholic, it makes prominent use
of the descending three-note motive.
Five variations follow, and none of them
move very far away from the theme. The
third variation is a dark, Slavic Adagio,
featuring thunderous octaves in the
pianist’s left hand.
Longest of the three movements but
still light in spirit, the finale returns to
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F-sharp minor. The pianist introduces
the recurring rondo theme: in another
tribute to Chopin, it is a charming
Polish mazurka. Each phrase of this
melody is punctuated by an exuberant
cascade of notes. A contrasting theme
in a very romantic style features flowing
triplet rhythms; in a later development,
this grows into an ecstatic outpouring,
featuring wide-ranging octaves for the
piano and luscious, slip-sliding writing
for the strings. An expansive, rhapsodic
coda provides the proper Russian-
Romantic finish to Scriabin’s maiden
orchestral work.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo,
two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons,
four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
timpani and strings.
THE WOODEN PRINCE
Béla Bartók
Born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary,
March 25, 1881; died in New York City, NY,
September 26, 1945
While Ravel’s Mother Goose uses fairy
tales for a light and sparkling work
of childlike innocence, Béla Bartók’s
ballet The Wooden Prince is a fractured,
very 20 th -century fairy tale with adult
sophistication and weight. After years
of discouragement, it was the work that
brought him his first major popular
success when it was premiered at the
Budapest Opera House on May 12, 1917,
yet, paradoxically, it is rarely performed
today. Hungarian audiences suddenly
clamored for more works from the
little-known composer, and this demand
enabled Bartók to finally mount his
opera Bluebeard’s Castle, composed in
1911, on a double bill with The Wooden
Prince in May 1918.
Its rarity today is probably largely due
to its singularly odd libretto, written by
Bartók’s friend Béla Balázs. A symbolist
dramatist in the style of Maurice
Maeterlinck (Pelléas et Mélisande), he
filled an ostensibly simple folk tale of
a Prince and a Princess, living in two
separate castles on two little hills, with
grotesque psychological twists and turns
before granting the happy ending.
Their castles are separated by a forest
and a stream, the trees and the waters
being played by the corps de ballet. An
enigmatic fairy seems to be protecting
the Princess, and she raises the trees
and then the waters against the Prince
as he tries to reach her. Thwarted,
the Prince decides to create a wooden
image of himself to attract the Princess’s
attention. He covers it with his cloak,
tops it with his crown and finally even
lops off his golden curls to adorn it.
The Fairy brings it to life. The Princess
falls in love with the doll instead of
the man and dances with it until it
eventually breaks down in mechanical
chaos. At this point, the Fairy takes
pity on the Prince and brings the now
peaceful trees and waters to do homage
to him. Realizing the real Prince is
more attractive, the Princess now tries
to lure him back, but, exhausted by his
struggles, he resists. Finally, the Princess
cuts off her own golden hair to show her
contrition, and he takes her in his arms.
Nevertheless, Bartók’s score for
The Wooden Prince contains some
of his most gorgeous and sensual
music. A work of reminiscence and
consolidation, it combines many of
the musical influences surrounding
him — Liszt, Wagner, Debussy and the
early Stravinsky of the ballets — before
Bartók leapt into the provocative
modernism of The Miraculous Mandarin
(1918). Scored for an enormous
orchestra, it contains seven large dances,
framed by a Prelude and Postlude. At its
center is a Great Apotheosis of Nature
scene in which the Fairy changes sides
and begins to aid the Prince. This
structure follows the form Bartók grew
to love most: the palindrome, in which
a quiet opening rises in an arch shape
to a central peak — here the Great
Apotheosis — and then reverses itself
back to echoes of its beginning.
The epic Prelude, in which a chord
of C major is gradually built up from
bottom to top of the orchestra, portrays
the enchanted world of Nature. (If it
sounds a bit familiar, that’s because it