|
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born in Oneg or Semyonovo, April 1, 1873;
died in Beverly Hills, March 28, 1943
Happy to be spending the summer of 1934 at Senar, his newly completed villa on the shores of Switzerland's Lake Lucerne, Rachmaninoff composed his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in seven weeks. He may have felt like an ancient rhapsodist (reciter of epic poetry) in telling a programmatic tale about Paganini. In 1935 he suggested a detailed scenario for the work to choreographer Michel Fokine based on "the legend about Paganini, who, for perfection in his art and for a woman, sold his soul to an evil spirit."
Though the scenario was formulated one year after the completion of the work, Rachmaninoff scholar Barrie Martyn has made a convincing case for the composer having had a Paganini story in mind all along. Such a story may have prompted him to weave the Dies irae (medieval sequence from the Mass for the Dead) into several of the variations. Rachmaninoff's unexplained obsession with the Dies irae manifested itself frequently in his compositions, though he always quoted only its opening phrase.
Rachmaninoff premiered the Paganini Rhapsody with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in Baltimore on November 7, 1934, and soon played it throughout the United States and Europe. It won instant popularity, owing in large measure to the glorious eighteenth variation, which has since been taken out of context frequently and used for radio, television, and movie themes. Critical reaction to the work was mixed, but since that time, far from fading into oblivion in the way of other "virtuoso-music" and "fluff", the Paganini Rhapsody has secured an even stronger place in the repertory, along with several of his concertos and symphonies.
The Paganini theme, from his Caprice No. 24 in A minor for solo violin, has cried out for variation from the start. Paganini himself was the first to subject it to variation treatment in that Caprice; Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms all made their contributions. Nor was Rachmaninoff the last - Witold Lutos?awski and Boris Blacher, and popular composers such as John Dankworth and Andrew Lloyd-Webber have all been attracted to it.
Rachmaninoff's structural design for the Rhapsody falls naturally into three sections corresponding to the movements of a concerto: opening movement, Variations 1-10; cadenza-like transition, Variation 11; slow movement, Variations 12-18; and finale, Variations 19-24. One thinks of Beethoven in regard to Rachmaninoff's stern eight-bar introduction and detached-note first variation, which precedes the presentation of the theme, in the manner of Beethoven?s Eroica finale.
The Dies irae makes its first appearance in Variation 7, where Rachmaninoff envisioned "a dialogue with Paganini, when his theme appears alongside Dies irae." After Variation 10, in which Dies irae returns, a wonderful change of mood is ushered in by the "cadenza" of No. 11. The "slow movement" variations, in a variety of keys other than the home key of A minor, include: a minuet (12), a marchlike variation (13), a major-key variation with the first suggestion of the theme inverted (14), a scherzando variation full of pianistic dazzle (15), a delicately scored, shimmering variation (16), a dark variation in B-flat minor (17), and the radiant eighteenth variation. The lush melody of No. 18 is based on an inversion of the Paganini theme, yet Martyn has pointed out that it also bears a certain resemblance to the slow movement of Nikolai Medtner?s Sonata-Fairy-Tale, which Rachmaninoff sometimes played in concert.
The last group of variations returns to the home key of A minor, increasing in pianistic brilliance through the final variation. In Variations 19 and 24 one is struck by the references to aspects of Paganini's legendary violin technique. Variations 22 and 24 bring back the Dies irae. The dazzling final variation ends with two tossed-off measures approached by a difficult leap, which apparently caused problems even for the composer. According to a charming story often told by Benno Moiseiwitsch, a glass of crème de menthe provided the solution for Rachmaninoff, who never drank as a rule. The Rhapsody?s witty ending after all that has gone before provides a rare glimpse of Rachmaninoff's sense of humor.
-© Jane Vial Jaffe
|
|
