This edition of Thursday Classical Music Blogging is brought to you courtesy of Archer Farms Burundi Kayanza whole bean coffee. Mmmm mmmm mmmm...
We continue our exploration of the Tchaikovsky Symphony #6 in B minor, the "Pathetique," which we left off, last week, after the first movement. Today we get to the second and third movement. And, oh boy, are they fun, especially after TWO CUPS OF BURUNDI KAYANZA!!! And it says on the box, "Hand-picked beans." You might be drinking coffee that was picked by people using their toes. Not me! Nuh uh. Hand-picked only, dude; settle for nothing less.
Before we proceed to the music, I just want to point out some important facts about my cup of coffee and the quantum physics of bassoons that might be important in our understanding of Tchaikovsky.
On another forum, an atheist once asked people who believe in God why they believed, their real reasons, and he asked it in a polite non-provocative manner. My answer impressed him the most. I said it was because of the coffee. When I drink a really good cup of Kenya AA, I just feel grateful. Honestly, I don't know what the secret of the universe is, whether their is some bizarre entity or process or plan. But I do know that I benefit from feeling grateful when I drink a really good cup of coffee. I want to thank somebody or something for the existence of little miracles like that. The first time you drink a REALLY good cup of coffee, it is a revelation, although perhaps a less-than mystical one. You say, "I didn't know things like this existed." It sets your mind wandering. It reminds us, other things do exist outside ourselves, and some of those things exceed our past experiences in startling ways.
Get this. This is the little description card that comes inside the box:
Burundi Kayanza Reserve Roast
Single-Origin, Africa
Eastern Africa offers some of the world's finest coffees. The high elevation and deep soil found in this region produce complex coffees known for their floral and fruit notes, rich flavor, and intriguing aromas.
Taste profile: [and they have a little map of Africa here, just in case you don't know where it is]
Flavor: Citrus notes with a dark chocolate finish.
Body: Buttery
Acidity: Bright
Aroma: Fruity
[Wait! There's more!]
This coffee was harvested and processed near the Rwandan border at the Bwayi washing station. The equatorial temperatures, high attitudes and volcanic soil of this region are ideal for local heirloom Bourbon Arabica trees and its derivative cultivars Jackson and Mibirizi. This washing station stresses top quality cherries, just compensation and traceability for specialty lots. This particular micro lot has yielded an exceptional crop that brews a cup with an exquisite pairing of bright citrus notes and a substantial, buttery body balanced by a fruity aroma and smooth, dark chocolate finish.
With a description like that, how can it not be good? However, I will admit I have bought some other single-origin Target coffees with the same cards and even better descriptions and felt underwhelmed. Maybe they contained some of those toe-picked beans by accident.
Dumbo... Tchaikovsky??? Remember?
Oh, yes. The music. One of the nice things about spreading this out into installments, as I'm discovering, is it gives us a fresh opportunity to look back at last week's music, having already actually listened to it. For instance, the way Tchaikovsky deliberately uses dynamics (deliberate changes in volume and speed in the music) to creatively manipulate the audience with dramatic effects.
Try something right now. Go google "Tchaikovsky pppppp", and see what you get. Or use your favorite search engine.
Dynamic Marks
There are a number of markings on written music that instruct the orchestra how to play a particular passage: softly, loudly, , swelling in volume, decreasing/increasing in volume, decelerating, accelerating, slowing down. They have evolved over time. In Baroque music of the early 18th century, for instance, if they wanted the orchestra to play louder, they would just add more instruments at that part of the score. This is one reason that Baroque performers are given greater latitude in how they choose to interpret their music. With the classical period, new markings on musical scores like p (for piano, Italian for softly) or f (for forte, Italian for loudly) made it easier for the composer to direct the musicians to play as he wanted.
But piano and forte weren't enough for some people. Oh no, they wanted it even softer or louder than the other guy's music, so written music gained dynamic markings like pp and ff, which mean, respectively, REALLY soft and REALLY loud! But like an arms race, soon, that wasn't enough. Some composers used ppp and fff. Wikipedia's entry on music dynamics defines ppp as meaning "pianissimo posibile" (the softest possible).
Well, that should end the arms race, eh? I mean, softest possible! If you go any softer, you will have impossibly soft, right? What's the point of giving instructions like that? Would never happen, you say.
Surely enough, pppp and ffff began to appear in music scores, although rarely. As the same Wikipedia entry notes, "Few pieces contain dynamic designations with more than three fs (sometimes called 'fortondoando.') They were composers turning the volume up to 11, or down to -11. ffff was dropping the bomb on the poor audience. And that was the end of the arms race, so we can...
... oh shit. What is that??? OH MY GOD LOOK AT ALL THE P's!
The first movement which we heard last week, is remarkable for the use of pppppp (that's six p's in a row, in case you are counting impaired). It stands to reason that six P's must be even softer than five p's, and we KNOW that three p's are as soft as is possible! So six p's is metaphysical, beyond the physics of known real world soundwave behavior in terms of softness, like having half an electron. But that is where Tchaikovsky wanted his Pathetique Symphony to go.
And let's see, where did he put the famous pppppp? I read comments in Wikipedia's editor forum questioning the veracity of the Pathetique pppppp and demanding somebody actually verify it by looking up the score. And that's where I snagged that image of the score. Somebody thought it was an urban rumor. It's in the first movement, at the very end of the exposition, just before the development section, which we all heard last week begins with a bone-crunchingly violent fff crash. Now Tchaikovsky's plan becomes clear. He lowers the volume, lowers it some more, lowers it EVEN MORE, gets us leaning forward in our auditorium seats (or turning up our stereo speakers) to hear the last faint murmurs of that lone bassoon in the exposition, so soft now that if a mouse farted, it would ruin the symphony... And then KEE-RASH! -- destroying eardrums left and right, waking up seniors in the back row. (Unfortunately, because of Youtube's limitations, the two videos we played last week were split up just at that very moment, so the full effect was lost.)
I found another youtube (there are many youtubes of Tchaikovsky's 6th) that doesn't split up the pppppp from the KEE-RASH of the first movement. Listen to just the first twenty-five seconds of this one, Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in the first movement, and doing a pretty good job of it, too. Turn up the volume so you can hear that bassoon.
Very sneaky, you might say. But it works, doesn't it? When we introduced Romantic-era Music in our OPUS 7 diary, I mentioned the increased use of dynamics in music to increase the drama of the music and make it more narrative-driven, more like a story.
This is just one of the little tricks that Tchaikovsky plays on us in the Pathetique. The second movement, which we will listen to next, is unique in another way. It is a 5/4 rhythm waltz. We are all used to the usual 3/4 rhythm waltzes. What is 5/4? Well, it's three beats, then two, then three, then two... Or two, then three. Whatever. You have to count five beats. This movement definitely sounds like a waltz, it has that traditional waltzy sound to it, and Tchaikovsky was one of the great waltz movement composers, as in his ballets and Nutcracker. But the 5/4 rhythm gives what sounds like it should be a waltz a limping character, defying our expectations. 5/4 was unusual in music at that time, although it's more common today, for instance in rock or jazz pieces like the famous Take Five by Dave Brubeck.
So now, let's continue our voyage through the Tchaikovsky Pathetique. We left off last week after the fading strains of the end of the first movement. Here's the second.
Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6 in B minor, "Pathetique", Second movement. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
The movement is in a simple ABA form, like a traditional waltz. The conductor, Karajan conducts it a little faster than I've usually heard it.
The first rather merry melody is introduced by the deeper strings, the violas and cellos, then repeated by the woodwinds.
At 2:32, the darker-hued B section begins in a minor key. A steady beat on the drum in the background contributes to a more serious tone. At 4:51, the A section returns. At 6:49, there is a sort of coda appended, with just a little bit of the serious B-section melody, before the music finally trails off.
If you pay attention, you can hear the shadow of our old friend, the four-note motif from the first movement, in both the A and B section main melodies.
Tchaikovsky's Dirtiest Trick
That was quite a relief from the brooding drama and violence of the first movement. Things are looking up a little, eh? In the third movement the future will look even brighter. And this sets us up for Tchaikovsky's dirtiest trick. Since there is no place for spoilers in music (how can there be, if it's meant to be listened to over and over again?) I'll clue you in.
Starting with his fifth symphony, Ludwig von Beethoven established the basic pattern for the "Triumph Symphony," a narrative-type symphony that begins perhaps in turmoil in the first movement but proceeds to dramatic brass-blaring major-key triumph in the final movement. A host of symphonies follow that four-movement formula. What Tchaikovsky does in the Pathetique is give us the sound and feel of the "triumph finale" in the third movement. It's as if Luke blows up the Deathstar halfway through Star Wars. People stand up and applaud as if it's over and reach for their coats, and then realize it's not really over.
In fact, during live performances of the Pathetique, it is commonplace, maybe even traditional now, for the audience to stand up and applaud after the third movement of the Pathetique. I have a youtube of that happening, but I'll show it next week. Normal appropriate concert manners would dictate not standing up nor applauding before the end of the last movement.
Just as Tchaikovsky set us up with his pppppp mouse-fart solo in the first movement for the KEE-RASH of the development, he sets us up here for the fourth and last movement (which we won't hear until next week). The fourth will defy expectations, especially those of people that thought they were sitting down for a typical symphony.
The third movement uses some unifying themes from the preceding two movements. There is, of course, the four-note motif. But Tchaikovsky has also been using and abusing simple scales (do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do) throughout. He uses them to create the sound of sinking despair, by embedding them in the bass line, as he does in the first movement, and he uses ascending scales to create a sense of optimism. In the third movement, he goes a little crazy with them, using them like fireworks, or like an exuberant kid blowing a slide-whistle.
And, it's sort of-almost in Sonata-allegro form. Don't I have a graphic to explain that? Oh, here it is:
Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6 in B minor, "Pathetique", Third movement. The Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini. (I'm switching away from Karajan on this one because it's a better performance, IMHO).
Exposition first theme group
The perky first theme in G majorbegins, rapid and softly in the strings with punctuation coming from the woodwinds. At 0:26, there is a short little march in b minor, followed, at 0:49, by another G major theme, this one based on fourth intervals, one of the more esoteric themes of the Pathetique I've been avoiding. (You ask, what is a fourth interval? If you strum a guitar without holding down any strings, you'll get fourth intervals.)
Exposition Second theme (0:49 to 1:39)
After a short bridge passage to E major, a clarinet introduces the second theme, a perky little march that will come to dominate the rest of the movement. After the clarinet states it the first time, the strings take it up. Tchaikovsky is careful not to use his full artillery until he's ready. He builds it up, and then he abruptly segues back to G for the recapitulation.
Recapitulation First theme group (1:39)
There is no development, so it's unfair to call this Sonata-allegro, but it's the closest thing we have to explaining it. After the E major second theme, we are back to G major, repeating the themes of the first group. Nothing new here.
But we are approaching the climax. And one thing that seems to be reliable with Tchaikovsky is that he likes to put the climax in the recapitulation, between the first and second theme. In the exposition, there is usually a change of key here, as we recall (and as my little blue graphic shows), usually from some bridge passage that changes key. However, in recapitulations, since it's in the home key now (G Major), that bridge passage HAS to be different. Different composers choose to put their best stuff in the development, or in the coda, or at the beginning of the recapitulation. Tchaikovsky likes to put his climax in the recap bridge passage. Just as he did in the first movement (that maelstrom effect), and just as he will in next week's fourth movement.
At 4:41 in the recap, a dramatic buildup begins in the horns as we prepare for the return of the second theme, the march. At 5:15, we get that weird little slide-whistle effect as the strings play fast scales in fourth-intervals up and down.
Recapitulation Second theme (5:27)
The march theme is back, now in the home key of G major, but it has grown up. It has been given over to the bullies of the romantic-era orchestra, the brass and the drums, with the drums pounding it to death on the downbeat.
At 6:23, the brass play a progression of chords that with a cymbal crash lead us into the final restatement of the march theme (6:49) with the full orchestra.
Coda (7:20)
Giulini plays games with the loudness, decreasing it before increasing it again in the coda. I assume that's in the score, although I didn't hear it in Karajan's version. The brass and drums finally lead us to the triumphant conclusion.
... Of the third movement.
Next week:
We'll go over the final movement next week. After that, I'm planning to either do Smetana's String Quartet #1 or a lesson on musical modes. I'm about 12 minutes late, so I'll finish things here and start ANOTHER POT OF BURUNDI, my drug of choice for listening to classical music.