Russian National Orchestra—February 27, 2019—CAMA's International Series at The Granada Theatre, Santa Barbara

Rarely, for example, has the bass clarinet
heard to such advantage. The clarity and
color become more apparent in the first
movement’s slower, lyrical mid-section,
the first half of which is soulful chamber
music for the woodwinds, each contributing
a distinctive voice while the alto
saxophone sings a melancholy song. The
music of the first section returns after an
elaborate transition, and then relaxes into
a gentle finish. As it does so, a second or
two after the glockenspiel makes it only
appearance, the strings quote the motto
theme from the First Symphony, which,
significantly, shares its first four notes
with the Gregorian Dies irae chant. Rachmaninoff
could scarcely have imagined
that the symphony would ever see the
light of day again, so the reference must
have been strictly for himself.
The second movement begins as a
disagreement, with most of the orchestra
trying to start a waltz over the objections
of the brass. The waltz that eventually
asserts is a nervous one, with occasional
tempo and meter changes, and the occasional
interruption from the brass.
In the last movement, the Dies irae
makes an actual appearance in the brass,
beginning with four-note hints and eventually
building up to quotations of its first
seven notes, which is enough for a positive
I.D. It’s not clear why Rachmaninoff,
who was raised in the Russian Orthodox
Church and never went to church anyway,
was so enamored of the chant from
the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass about
judgment day; he likely absorbed it from
Berlioz and Liszt. It makes prominent appearances
in his Rhapsody on a Theme
of Paganini, The Isle of the Dead, and Third
Symphony, and less prominent appearances
in other Rachmaninoff works. An even
more prominent quote in the third movement
is from the ninth movement of his All
Night Vigil, a 1915 Orthodox liturgical work
for chorus. He lifted much of the last part
of the movement, in which Christ’s empty
tomb is discovered, to much rejoicing by
the angels. Rachmaninoff even wrote “Alliluya”
into the score at the point where the
trumpets play the Alliluya music from the
All Night Vigil. It leads immediately into the
coda, an unangelic bacchanale of about
20 seconds’ length. n
Notes © 2019, Howard Posner
16 CENTENNIAL SEASON CELEBRATION