Tchaikovsky Symphonies

The DVD of Karajan / Berlin doing Symphonies No. 4,5 & 6 came yesterday, and we listened / watched the performance of Symphony No. 4.  This is very much to our tastes, and is likely the set we will return to again to again.  The oversized orchestra makes a glorious sound, and Karajan's forward momentum is compelling.

Mike, is it oversized? Interesting. There is a rumor that vonK doubled the string sections for his digital recordings of the Beethoven symphonies, and that he also insisted on slight tuning variations to produce a fuller sound. Are you finding that he applied these ideas more liberally?

Note that there's no value judgment here. I personally think Von Karajan was a genius (musically speaking).

Kind regards,

Erik Jan

EJS, I counted at least 35 violins, and he used four trumpets, 4 horns and 3 trombones.  The stage is overflowing with musicians.

Mike,

Thanks, very helpful. The numbers you quote are fairly typical for the modern big orchestras.

EJ

35 violins seems like a big section to me, and I noted that the 4th is scored for two trumpets, not 4, and when the trumpets play, all 4 are always playing.

Perhaps you're right. I was assuming a total string section of 60 to 75 heads, half of which would consist of first and second violins, remainder viola and lower strings - the total numbers match up but I never checked the prescribed scoring.

Cheers,

EJ

Karajan's Tchaikovsky is part Karajan, part Tchaikovsky. I think Tchaikovsky needs an agile orchestra, not one of those 'the sound of a thousand violins' setups. Your basic ballet orchestra, with excellent soloists, obviously, able to indulge in the 'joli,' is perhaps closer to the composer's ideal than a massive orchestra.

I think the 4th Symphony benefits very much from an overblown presentation.

With no real development sections and plenty of beautiful melody, it relies on repetition, and it is the orchestral color that moves it along.

sure, but a bigger orchestra and more doubled desks doesn't necessarily make for more colour and sonority: it necessitates on the other hand more strictness.

Doubling desks does change the sonority, and also expands the dynamic range.  The Karajan rendering is no "stiffer" for the strictness.

In order to balance a very large string section solo woodwinds are necessarily doubled so that for example two flutes will play a line otherwise [when correctly balanced with a string section in scale given by the correct proportions to balance naturally without straining for effect] would be played by a soloist. Doubling the line transforms the result massively, and if you ask any woodwind soloist they will tell you that it largely destroys the inherent possibility of presenting the line a characterful and entertaining way as they are reduced in their playing to mere tutti players who must adhere with the strictest degree of perfection to the need to make two instruments sound exactly as one, thus ironing out the vital element of solo-playing.

If you, and many listeners do, like that method then fine, but it is not a truly optimal method for bringing out any music to its most expressive degree. Karajan was famous for doubling the winds to keep the balance with huge string sections. Whether one likes this is a matter of opinion, though without question it produces a style that some find without much character. Again whether one likes characterful performances is a question of opinion and personal taste.

What is not open to doubt is that when a composer asks for a pair of players to play the same line in unison, as the effect is different. If it were not different why mark for the doubling and the solo here and there, and why should any conductor - however famous - feel free to play fast and loose with the composer's intentions in this way, unless the hall is unsuitable and the best effect [at best a compromised one] may well be achieved with doubling to keep things clear. In a good hall there is no reason to do this.

As Immerseel notes, his 45 players for Beethoven were able to fully convey the music even in the large halls in Vienna, so apart from the undoubted additional dynamic range possible with very large orchestras, what advantage can there be in playing about with the score, and the clear iontentions of the composer?

Herm wrote above:

I think Tchaikovsky needs an agile orchestra, not one of those 'the sound of a thousand violins' setups. Your basic ballet orchestra, with excellent soloists, obviously, able to indulge in the 'joli,' is perhaps closer to the composer's ideal than a massive orchestra.

I believe that composers wrote for the orchestras that were available to them, and balanced their music for the possibilities of the ensembles available. In late nineteenth century Russia the main orchestras were the regular theatre and opera orchestras who would occasionally perform symphonic concerts, and thus the ideal orchestra for Tchaikovsky is clearly a modest sized orchestra as Herm describes, and scaled to play in the theatre pit for opera and ballet. Just as Immerseel's Anima Eterna group is ideal for Beethoven as it aproximates closely to what he was anticipating - with very pleasing results, IMO.

As for there being no development in the Fourth Symphony, are you stating this as an opinion or a fact? If it is an opinion, then fare enough, for it is certainly no fact. Anyone may hold a wrong opinion, but no incorrect fact should be left unchallenged.

Unfortunately my score of this was eaten by rodents whilst in store, or we could go into a bar by bar analysis, but I am not prepared to do that other than face to face, as it is a good deal of work, and I am not sure that I would not be wasting my time posting such thoughts on an internet board, given the level of understanding that can state that there are "no real devcelopment section" in The Fourth Symphony.

These development  sections are not like those of Haydn or Beethoven, but they exist and if well performed [and I come back to Klemperer on this, with his ability to bring out detail without overblowing the music] you would soon hear how fine they are [first and last movements both contain massive developments] even if you have not studied the scores.

As I say the whole issue is difficult when you blur statements of opinion with posts that appear to be statements of fact, and thus having a valuable and rewarding exchange with you is all but impossible.

Interestingly perhaps, US based musicologists call "development," "free fantasia," which sums it up rather well, I think.

Your sincerely, Goerge Johnson

Eloquent and more scrupulously informed than my post, thank you. I'd just like to say you don't need to go period instrument to get closer to Tchaikovsky's orchestral ideal than Karajan. You just need a conductor (and a sound engineer in the case of recordings) who is aware of the requirements: not lush and big all the time, but colourful and quick on its feet. Particularly symphony nr 4 and the wonderful suite nr 3 are pretty demanding in this respect.

BTW these opera / ballet orchestral bands in PIT's time were pretty sophisticated. The Czar and the Russian bourgeoisie loved sophisticated ppp <> fff effects, as evidenced in the Sleeping Beauty's 3d act pas-de-deux.

George, I'd love to have you point out the development section in the first movement of the 4th symphony.

As for the size of orchestra to be employed, I simply find a larger orchestra to produce a more satisfying result in the 4th.  It needs no more defence than that.

Tchaikovsky and Beethoven are different creatures altogether, so that's mixing apples and oranges.

If there was no room for difference of opinion, so many different recordings and interpretations would not exist. 

I am quite happy and relaxed discussing an interpretation of the 4th that I enjoy here on the forum, and do not understand your ill temper.  Do you think you are the only one blessed with ears ?

About fifty years ago Leonard Bernstein did this in one of his tv shows. It's the notorious "I want it" piece.

David Brown has a graphic representation of the first mvt of the 4th in 'Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years,' page 170.

According to Brown there are two development sections in the first movement.

BTW music doesn't necessarily get better (or worse) if and when there's a development section.

Do you think you are the only one blessed with ears?

No. Where do I suggest this?

The funny thing is that rather than me make hours of work for myself making a bar by bar analysis of the music [even ignoring the cost of a new score o the music, which I cannot afford at the moment], I'd rather read Bernstein on the subject with a score on the table! I would laugh out loud at my failures of perception, and smile where I agreed! Find the Bernstain TV broadcasts on DVD and enjoy an hour of entertainment that is far more valuable than anything I could offer.

Why are you curious to read a musical analysis by a former rank and file orchestral player? No doubt your insights are already finer than anything I could offer, and no doubt you would enjoy pulling my analysis apart in detail, were I so bold as to present it in public, which I why I would not, and never have on a public internet board. But in face to face discussions, even my humble efforts have produced a wry smile from musicians working at a high level.

You accuse me of ill-temper, but that is unfounded. I simply cannot disagree with Bernstain, Klemperer and others that there are significant development sections in the first and last movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth symphony. This is a fact not open to dispute if you accept the notion of musical analysis in the first place

As for differing opinions: "Vive la difference!".

George

I'm too cool and relaxed to approach this as an argument.  I don't see the point of it.

It is no argument.

It could be disussion about style, ...

George, I don't hear a development section in the 1st movement of the 4th.

It's as simple as that.

I will research it.

Researching this is not as easy as I had hoped, as I am getting conflicting views.

Still, I don't hear it, and that counts for something.  Where's the thematic development ?

and George, this doesn't mean I have completed a through analysis, it means I'm poking about, trying to make some sense of it, so anything a professional symphonic musician has to say in this area is of interest. 

As far as Klemperer goes, the disc that was supposed to have the 4th finally arrived, but it is a pairing of the Tchaikovsky 6th with the Schumann 4th, not the Tchaikovsky 4th.

The only Klemperer Tchaikovsky 4th I have been able to locate is a used cassette for $100, therefore too expensive to satisfy curiosity.

Maybe Karajan took it out  -  I mean the development section.

There's a pretty solid piece of development (preceded by a small precox development) and when it ends (as I recall) there's the recurrence of the fate theme in the trumpets, pretty shrill, and a huge roll and bang on the drums. So what comes before is the development section.

It's useless to name timings on the cd, since you're bound to have another recording.

Sorry, but I don't hear any thematic development in the 1st movement of the 4th.  How many minutes in to the 1st movement do you hear this development ?  If you know it's in the clarinets a minute or so after the third utterance of the "Fate" theme, that would make it identifiable on any rendering of the 4th. 

To me, the 1st movement of the 4th is like a rondo, but not quite, with the opening "fate" theme being the repeated theme.  I say "not quite" because the strict ordering is not observed, but it "feels" like a rondo.  This movement has a program, so is to some extent eposidic, which lends itself to theme and variations, or in this case the more paticular rondo. 

This movement feels more like a tone poem ala R. Strauss then like the 1st movement of a symphony.

And that is the point! I would need to have a score - I burned the rat eaten one that I had stored - and the timings on any CD version mean nothing with respect to another. Only bar numbers and cue letters mean anything in this context.

I am moving house in the next three weeks and have a huge amount of work to do in the new place to make it habitable. I plan to camp once the electricity is made safe, and buy drinking water till the lead rising pie is replaced with safe and legal modern plumbing, and use a camping gas thing till the gas line is replaced with something safe  ...  et cetera  ...

It is clear that buying paint is a higher priority than buying a score for now and several months to come, so I must decline the offer of a chapter and verse analysis of this even if I had the time. As such we are at our busiest ever at work having broken the previous sales record of ice cream in April by some 20% with no extra staff.

So whilst I would dispute that there is an absense of development in the first movement, I am in no position to make the intelectual effort to prove the point.

I would offer the observation that Tchaikowski was not the first composer to avoid adoption of  the method of development employed by Haydn and Beethoven [primarily] of taking thematic material and altering it in length of notes, the notes themselves, and the ordering of phrases as well as tonality, and employing almost Bachian counterpoint to combine the themes, but Mozart did so far less [though on occasion he did such as "famously" in the Finale of the Jupiter Symphony] as he wrote more melodic themes than Beethoven or Haydn, whilst Schubert all but refrains from it, prefering to present the same themes [as brough out in the exposition] in different contexts of key, orchestration, and position relative to local climaxes or crescendi. Tchaikowski, like Schubert and Dvorak [but unlike Brahms], wrote so many memorable tunes into his sonata form movements - and indeed one might almost call them quasi sonata forms in some ways - that the kind of precise sectional analysis that can be applied to Haydn or Beethoven is nigh impossible in the sense that every significant musician or musicaologist will draw the sections [and significances] differently to some degree.

Therefore I do commend the work of let us say Lenard Bernstain, whose understanding of the music is at least among the most probing, and who certainly was able to show analysis in a more clear and entertaining way than I could even if I had the time ...

George

Okay this is the last I am going to do, because I'm not sure you want to hear it.

there are three thematic groups in the first mvt. The first is the restless string stuff after the statement of the fate theme. The second group starts with the skipping clarinet melody (it's in a way a mutation of the first thematic group). The third group is a rather heroic and hectic tutti thing that is cadences into a restatement of the fate theme and it ends with a big bang.

In Mravinsky this ends at minute nine. This is when the wandering mood of the first theme is picked up once more in dreamy downward spirals, in dotted rhythms. This is where the development starts.

It ends with a chorale on the trombones. The recapitulation starts with the second theme group, skipping theme in the bassoons. The coda starts with the crescendo and the reemergence of the drums.

Thanks Herm.  I'll give it a listen that way.  I hadn't thought in terms of the first movement having a coda.

I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am :-)

The vinyl copy is available at ebay, atm for 6 USD.

Thanks Kuma.  I've never shopped on eBay.