MASTERWORKS 4: Tchaikovsky & Beethoven – PROGRAM NOTES
Symphony No. 43 in E-flat Major (“Mercury”)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Written: circa 1771
Movements: Four
Style: Classical
Duration: 22 minutes
Haydn worked for nearly thirty years for the famed Esterházy family, the richest in all Hungary.
Its head, Prince Nikolaus, was an ardent music fan and an amateur musician himself. He built a
spectacular “summer home,” Esterháza, which rivaled Versailles and Schönbrunn in its grandeur. Music
was continually present at Esterháza (there were 1038 opera performances between 1780 and 1790),
and it was Haydn’s job to provide it. Haydn’s contract with the Prince detailed his responsibilities:
Joseph Haydn will daily, whether in Vienna or elsewhere in his territories, appear both morning
and afternoon at the princely antechamber to inquire whether his Highness wishes a concert be
given. If he be so commanded, he will notify the other musicians and be attentive to be sure that
not only he but the other musicians as well appear at the stipulated time . . . [he] should take
charge of all musical activities and all musical instruments with assiduousness . . . [he] will be
bound to compose such music as his Serene Highness shall command, and not let such
compositions be communicated to any other party, much less be copied, but they shall remain
for his use only and his rightful ownership, and he shall not, without knowledge and permission,
compose for any other person.
Initially the artistic atmosphere was exhilarating – “where I should like to live and die.”
However, toward the end of his tenure at Esterháza, Haydn began to chafe at the relative isolation of
the place – “I am forced to remain here . . . it really is sad always to be a slave.”
He wrote literally thousands of works for Prince Esterházy. How is it that the prince never got
bored with Haydn’s style and hired someone else? Haydn explained the trick to his biographer Georg
August Griesinger:
The Prince was satisfied with all my works, I received applause, as head of the orchestra I was
able to experiment, to observe what made a strong impression and what weakened this, in other
words, to correct, supplement, cut, take risks. I was cut off from the world. No one could cause
me to doubt myself and torment me, and so I had to be original.
Haydn didn’t invent the symphony; many composers in the late eighteenth century wrote
symphonies or “sinfonias” (or overtures as they were sometimes called). However, his more than 100
symphonies are an encyclopedia of the evolution of the form. His Symphony in E-flat—given the
enigmatic subtitle “Mercury” in the nineteenth century—doesn’t really break any new ground. The first,
second and last movements are in a “textbook” sonata form with contrasting elements in the exposition
and recapitulation which frame a central working out section. The third movement is a standard minuet
and trio—played at a properly stately tempo as compared with Beethoven’s scherzos. What listener’s
will find unusual in this symphony is Haydn’s emphasis on long, lyrical melodies. And there are some
quirky surprises near the end of the first and last movements—the sort of thing that kept Prince
Esterházy listening.
©2014 John P. Varineau
Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840—1893)
Written: 1876
Movements: Ten
Style: Romantic
Duration: Eighteen minutes
Tchaikovsky is the gold standard for audiences who love lush, romantic orchestral music. In
particular, his concertos and last three symphonies (the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth) occupy the top positions
of the romantic orchestral repertoire. This is highly emotional music with tremendous contrasts in
dynamics and mood. Of all of the late nineteenth century composers, Tchaikovsky had a knack for
writing beautiful and eloquent melodies that would instantly connect with the listener. However,
Tchaikovsky, who musically wore his heart on his sleeve, had a deep respect, if not reverence, for the
music of the eighteenth century. The music composed by such greats as Haydn and Mozart is more
restrained and succinct than any romantic composition. It has a clarity of form and simple elegance that
is rarely found in the music of the nineteenth century. That is this sort of music that Tchaikovsky was
trying to emulate with his Variations on a Rococo Theme. Tchaikovsky the romantic was dressing up as a
classical composer.
Tchaikovsky wrote this set of variations for the principal cellist of the Imperial Russian Music
Society, Wilhelm Karl Friedrich Fitzenhagen. He asked Fitznehagen to go through the music and make
suggestions. Tchaikovsky got way more than he had asked for. What audiences hear today in this
composition is considerably different from what Tchaikovsky had originally intended. Much of the actual
cello writing is Fitzenhagen’s. He reordered the variations as well, even deleting one of them! However,
when Tchaikovsky’s publisher gave him the opportunity to restore the piece to its original form, he
declined. Incredibly, with all of the reams of academic work on Tchaikovsky’s music done in the last
century, there are still no published orchestral parts to the original version. The Variations themselves
are easy to listen to and understand. After a brief introduction, the cello plays a simple little melody.
That theme is probably original to Tchaikovsky—his attempt at writing with the simple elegance of the
Rococo. (Rococo really refers to paintings from the time of Mozart and Haydn. They are decorative
works, frequently of country scenes.) Seven variations follow the theme, each exploiting the cello and
challenging the cellist. Although easy to listen to, these variations are tremendously difficult to
perform—a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
©2014 John P. Varineau
Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, “Pastoral”
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Written: 1803-08
Movements: Five
Style: Romantic
Duration: 40 minutes
“When you wander through the silent pine woods, remember that I have often made poetry, or,
as they say, composed there,” Ludwig van Beethoven wrote to a friend. Anticipating arriving in the
country, he wrote to another, “How delighted I shall be to ramble for a while through bushes, woods,
under trees, through grass and around rocks. No one can love the country as much as I do. For surely
woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.”
Beethoven’s workday usually included several long walks in the country; he boasted of walking
around the city of Vienna twice daily. Like most Viennese, Beethoven spent his summers in the country.
Initially he was the guest of nobility at their country estates, but when he was finally able to afford it, he
rented his own summer lodgings. It was there he did his most productive work. Beethoven composed
most of his Symphony No. 6, what he himself called his Pastoral symphony, in the “delicious wooded
environs of Heiligenstadt.”
Unlike later composers such as Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt, who would give detailed
descriptions of what their music was “about,” Beethoven loathed giving a blow-by-blow description of
his Pastoral Symphony. Early on he wrote, “The hearer should be permitted to discover the situations for
himself. He who has ever conceived an idea of country life ought to be able, without many indications,
to think of the author’s meaning.” At the first performance he included on the printed program, “More
an expression of feeling than of painting.”
If you were in the audience for that first performance at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on
December 22, 1808, you would have heard quite a concert. Along with the Pastoral Symphony,
Beethoven also premiered his incomparably great Fifth Symphony, his Fourth Piano Concerto, the Choral
Fantasy for piano, choir and orchestra (which prefigures his Ninth Symphony,) some movements from
his Mass in C and the aria Ah! Perfido. Even though the concert was nearly four hours long (and the
heater broke down), the audience still expected Beethoven to improvise alone at the piano as well.
Think of it – an entire concert of “new” music!
Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is entirely unlike his Fifth. While the Fifth Symphony is an epic
musical journey, a powerful statement of man’s triumph over fate, the Sixth is just happy music. The
first movement (“Cheerful impressions awakened by arrival in the country”) is void of the drama and
tension that we so often hear in Beethoven. The second (“Scene by the brook”)—complete with
orchestral bird calls—is about as lazy and serene as orchestral music gets. The third movement (“Merry
gathering of country folk”) is a joyous folk dance which is suddenly interrupted by a fierce
thunderstorm—the fourth movement. This is the only place in the entire symphony that reflects
Beethoven’s tempestuous personality. And what a storm it is! Like all thunderstorms, it dies away. The
country-folk of the third movement rejoice with a return to happy music in the last movement
(“Shepherd’s Song; glad and grateful feelings after the storm). After an entire symphony of such
unmitigated joy, we have to agree with a friend of Beethoven who said that he had “never met anyone
who so delighted in Nature, or so thoroughly enjoyed flowers or clouds or other natural objects. Nature
was almost meat and drink to him; he seemed positively to exist upon it.”
©2014 John P. Varineau