Etudes-Tableaux

In the years in which Sergej Rachmaninoff composed the nine Études-Tableaux, Op. 39, Russia underwent a crucial historical transformation: the February Revolution of 1917 and, more radically, the October Revolution had overthrown the tsarist regime and marked the beginning of a new era, which initially seemed full of promise. Rachmaninoff, initially fascinated by this wind of freedom, soon realized that he would have to emigrate: "In March 1917 I had already decided to leave Russia, but I could not carry out my plan because Europe was still at war and no one could cross the borders. I withdrew to the countryside and spent the summer in Ivanovka. It would be my last summer in Russia. The impressions I gained through contact with the peasants were very unpleasant. I would have preferred to leave Russia with better memories. At the time of the second phase of the revolution – the Bolshevik uprising – I still lived in my old apartment in Moscow. I began my first piano concerto and set in motion the composition of what would later become the Fourth… At that moment came a completely unexpected event, which I can only attribute to divine grace and not to chance, which came to my aid." He referred to a concert tour through Scandinavia, which served as a pretext for leaving the country. One of the last musical fragments he composed in November 1917 was one that later got the nickname Orient Express, perhaps a reflection of his desperate desire to escape to another life. His family joined him on December 23 in Petrograd; the famous bass Fjodor Chaliapin sent his friend a farewell letter with a box of caviar and homemade bread for the journey – a gesture that deeply moved Rachmaninoff. After the Scandinavian tour, the great journey to New York began from Oslo, on November 1, 1918, aboard a small steamboat. So began his adventure in the New World, but Rachmaninoff remained tormented for the rest of his life by a deep sense of nostalgia – a Russian, as Stravinsky once said, "never forgets the scent of Russian soil". This feeling of nostalgia seems deeply rooted in the human spirit and emerges strongly in Rachmaninoff's works, which have a highly virtuosic character and are often saturated with a gripping passion that culminates in a climax bordering on tragic despair. The idea of an emotional-sonic "climax" was essential for Rachmaninoff, who in a letter to Chaliapin stated that the performer had to reach this peak "after the most meticulous calculation". This idea of passion, musically rendered with almost scientific precision, also applies to Rachmaninoff as a conductor, who was described by contemporaries as someone without theatrical flair, entirely focused on discovering new, precious details in every work. The art of the conductor also manifests itself in his piano compositions, which are often quasi-orchestral in nature; it is therefore no wonder that some of the Études-Tableaux were orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi. On that occasion, Rachmaninoff gave the Italian composer some "secret explanations" to help him find the "necessary colours" for Études 2, 6 and 7 of opus 39, as well as the fourth of opus 33: