Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky, Op.35a
The musical world of late Imperial Russia was small. Composers gathered around the two centres of Moscow and St. Petersburg, working together in the conservatoires, mixing socially in Society salons, completing each others’ unfinished works and, in many cases, striking up deep friendships. When the pianist-composer Nikolai Rubinstein died in 1881, his friend Peter Tchaikovsky was deeply affected and wrote a lengthy elegiac Piano Trio in A minor Op.50 to his memory, incorporating an extended set of variations. The following autumn, around the time of the Trio’s premiere, Tchaikovsky was joined at the Moscow Conservatoire by the brilliant young composer Anton Arensky. The two became good friends and after Tchaikovsky’s suicide in 1893 Arensky expressed his sorrow with an elegiac String Quartet in A minor, Op.35, which also had as its centrepiece a set of variations – this time on Tchaikovsky’s children’s song "Legend" (When Jesus Christ was but a child), Op.54/5. Much of the work expresses passionate sorrow; its "motto theme" is taken from a Russian Orthodox funeral chant, but with the central variations, Arensky paid explicit homage to his lost friend, after the example Tchaikovsky himself had set 12 years earlier.
This deeply felt and beautifully written movement was an unexpected "hit", and Arensky himself soon published it separately in versions for conventional string quartet (the original Op.35 was for the unusual combination of violin, viola and two cellos) and for string orchestra. In this form it has been his most lasting orchestral work, performed today long after his two symphonies, operas and piano and violin concertos have been forgotten. The theme, in E minor, is presented simply, and six variations then express in turn the deep, lyrical melancholy and joyous, balletic energy which contrast so vividly in Tchaikovsky’s music. They culminate in Variation Seven, all but a direct crib from the famous Andante cantabile of Tchaikovsky’s First Quartet – the movement that had moved Tolstoy to tears. In a poignant coda, the theme is heard once more in unearthly harmonics; the chant-like "motto theme" of the quartet appears twice, pianissimo, and 8 pizzicato chords bring Arensky’s tribute to a resigned close.
Richard Bratby 2002
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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