Serguéi Rajmaninov · Romanticism
1940
Orchestra · United States
Tonality
Without a unique tone. His three movements go through several tonalities.
From the atril
To the Symphonic dances, composed in 1940 on Long Island, near New York, were Rajmaninov's last work. He dedicated them to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, which premiered them in early 1941. He called them. «my last spark», and in them sum up their entire musical life, with a look at both nostalgic and modern.
It's three moves. The first, energetic and rhythmic, has in its center a single high saxophone, an unexpected doorbell in Rajmaninov, of a very Russian melancholy. At the end of this movement he cites, transformed into a serene light, the main theme of his First Symphony, the work whose failure had sunk him forty years earlier. The second is a disturbing and ghostly waltz, full of shadows. The third faces the Dies iraethe song of death, with a song of his Vespers who celebrates the resurrection, and life ends up vanishing; on the score, Rajmaninov wrote «Hallelujah». It's a magnificent work, a farewell full of energy.
What to hear
- The high saxophone solo of the first movement.
- The fantastic waltz.
- The struggle between the Dies irae and the song of the Vespers.
