The first, or more precisely, the tenth
On 14 March, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s symphony orchestra will perform at the Grand Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Mikhail Tatarnikov, who will take to the conductor’s podium, explains how the programme for the philharmonic concert came about.
"It’s been a long-standing desire of mine to have the theatre’s orchestra perform Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. I don’t merely love the work on a personal level, but consider it to be a landmark in symphony composition. I understand why the conductor Hans von Bülow referred to it as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’, and why many after him have continued to use this name. The point is that for a long time after the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, there was nothing that could match it for impact and scale until Brahms’ work — performed for the first time in Karlsruhe in 1876 — renewed Beethoven’s musical traditions. So, even if it’s the first of Brahms’ symphonies, on another level it can be thought of as the tenth symphony.
"I’ve always been fascinated by the story of its composition. In total, Brahms wrote four symphonies, but he was already well into middle age when he finished work on the first. A great many around him had spent a long time putting pressure on him to write it. People are well aware of the lofty and tender feelings he harboured for Clara Schumann. And Clara was not the only one among his friends who asked him, advised him, even begged him — in letters, as their companionship was only epistolary after Robert Schumann’s death — to turn his attention to the symphony genre.
“On the other hand, dissenting voices insisted that Brahms was pushed to write this symphony by his desire for a cushy position, so to speak. At the time, the widely-held belief was that a composer had to write at least one symphony during his career. However, even if there is a shred of truth to all of this, Brahms was already a mature composer by the time he wrote his Symphony No. 1, both in terms of life experience and professional accomplishments. He was completely prepared for the task. And the symphony itself turned out to be richly composed, though not excessively so. It is restrained in form, devoid of youthful fervour and bombast, and still resonantly melodic.
“As for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, it is a piece of music which every orchestra should have in its repertoire, and which ought to be performed in the St. Petersburg Philharmonic at least once each season. The young soloist Alexander Lubyantsev will be performing alongside the symphony orchestra. He is part of a new generation and is a very striking and distinctive talent. It’s very pleasing to know that we are the ones who have been entrusted with performing a piece of music which can be simply summarized as: ‘Rachmaninoff is our everything!’”
Concert programme for the Grand Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic on 14 March:
Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra;
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
