The Destroyed masterpiece: features of the late orchestral style of P.I. Tchaikovsky on the example of his symphonic ballad "Voivode"

Serov Yurii Doctor of Art History Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov 36 Mokhovaya Street, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191028 serov@nflowers.ru Other publications by this author

The symphonic ballad "Voivode" has a difficult fate. Tchaikovsky composed it in September 1890 in Tiflis, Pushkin's text (translation of A. Mickiewicz's poem "The Watch") captivated him, the composer was satisfied with his work (to A.I. Tchaikovsky: "I finished my symphonic ballad "Voivode". I am very pleased with her" ^{[6, p. 306]}). Circumstances (work on the production of "The Queen of Spades" in St. Petersburg and Kiev, the composition of "Iolanthe" and "The Nutcracker" for the next winter season, a concert trip to the United States) forced the author to postpone the instrumentation of the finished play for almost a year. In August-September 1891, he returned to the Voivode and asked P.I. Jurgenson to buy in Paris a new musical instrument that he needed to orchestrate the ballad — celeste: "I discovered in Paris a new orchestral instrument, something between a small piano and a glockenspiel, with a divinely wonderful sound. I want to use this instrument in the symphonic poem "Voivode" and in the ballet ["The Nutcracker", approx. the author]. For the ballet, it will be needed only in the autumn of 1892, but for the Voivode I need it for the coming season, because I promised to conduct this piece in St. Petersburg at the Musical Society, and maybe I will be able to perform it in Moscow. It is called Celesta Mustel and costs twelve hundred francs. You can buy it only in Paris from the inventor G. Mustel. I want to ask you to write out this instrument" ^{[10, p. 212]}.

         On November 6, 1891, Tchaikovsky conducted Voivode in a concert by A.I. Ziloti, and the next day, under the influence of criticism from friends and, above all, S.I. Taneyev, destroyed the score: "My dear fellow, do not regret the "Voivode" — that's where he's going. I do not repent at all, because I am deeply convinced that this essay is compromising me. If I were an inexperienced young man, it's another matter, but an old man with gray hair should go forward (even this is possible, because, for example, Verdi continues to develop, and he is under eighty), or stand at a height previously achieved. If such a thing happens in the future, I will tear it to shreds again, or even completely stop writing. I don't want for anything in the world, like Anton Grigoryevich [Rubinstein, approx. the author], to dirty the paper when everything has been exhausted for a long time. <...> I am finishing the instrumentation of "Iolanthe". It seems that it will not have to be torn apart, but, however, I do not know" ^{[10, p. 221]}.

Tchaikovsky, through Jurgenson, asked Zeloti to destroy the voices, but he kept them (he told the attendant to collect the parts after the concert and take them to his apartment) — the story turned out to be almost a detective story. Jurgenson wrote to Pyotr Ilyich a few days later, on November 14: "It's a pity! I admit, I wanted to trick you, hide the orchestral voices, but it turned out to be a Zealot who destroyed them with youthful haste. I will never believe that it was necessary, never!" ^{[10, p. 220]}. The score of the ballad was restored from the voices and published by M.P. Belyaev after the author's death in 1897.

The letter we mentioned to Jurgenson, related to the destruction of the Voivode, highlights the key qualities of Tchaikovsky as an artist: his passionate desire to rise to new heights all the time ("Verdi continues to develop, and he is under eighty"), his difficult-to-explain fear of "dirtying paper when everything has been exhausted for a long time", his most severe demands on in relation to himself ("I'm finishing the instrumentation of Iolanthe." It seems that it will not have to be torn apart, but, however, I do not know").

Let's turn to Tchaikovsky's ballad, which did not easily find its way to the audience, note its undoubted advantages, focus on performance solutions that are extremely interesting and are a direct continuation of subtle compositional ideas, talk about the orchestra of the late Tchaikovsky, which, without any doubt, echoes the symphonic discoveries of the XX century much more intensely than with the music of the outgoing the XIX century. Along the way, we note that among the vast body of scientific works related to Tchaikovsky's work, "Voivode", in fact, is devoted to only three pages in A.N. Dolzhansky's book "Tchaikovsky's Music", one of which is an exposition of a poem by A.S. Pushkin, which formed the basis of the symphonic play.

The orchestra in Tchaikovsky's ballad (in the spirit of the "new music" of the twentieth century) becomes a model of human society (not for the first time in Tchaikovsky, and not only in him), a place of collision of powerful energy flows, the emergence of unexpected allusions. The composer resolutely pushes the usual boundaries, refreshes the established experience, increases his technical arsenal, uses the newly discovered rich instrumental possibilities.

The score of Voivoda contains many bold, innovative solutions for Russian music of that time, a wide variety of instrumentation techniques, and unexpected timbre combinations. In a letter to N.F. von Meck, Tchaikovsky writes: "What a pleasure it is to look at your already completely finished score! For a musician, the score is not only a collection of various notes and pauses, but a whole picture, among which the main figures, secondary and secondary figures, and finally the background, stand out clearly. For me, any orchestral score is not only a foretaste of the future pleasures of the organs of hearing, but also the direct enjoyment of the organs of vision" ^{[2, p. 155]}.

The author should have been satisfied with the score of "Voivode", it gives aesthetic pleasure. Musical visions replace each other, sonorous novelties accurately and subtly correspond to Pushkin's text, the melody is extremely rich, the themes are graphically relief, concise, finished, the orchestral fabric is layered: chamber, intimate pages are replaced by powerful dramatic symphonic tutti, dry linear episodes by grandiose polyphonic singing of the entire orchestra.

Here are some of the most important and interesting examples, in our opinion. From the first bars, Tchaikovsky creates a surprisingly colorful picture of a furious, angry horse race. The tremolo of the timpani, the accents of the alternating bassoons and the long menacing pedal of the double basses (all in a low la of a large octave) — there can be no doubt: the governor is furious and dreams of revenge. Dryish cellos join the ostinate rhythm of the timpani. They have a rather difficult task: to play a technically difficult place at a fast pace on pianissimo, and even together. The composer skillfully and economically connects various orchestral groups to the general movement, reaching a dynamic culmination of unprecedented power. Bright and noisy copper is already coming to the fore here (figures 6-8). The leap turns into an evil bacchanal dance, a terrible force that sweeps away everything in its path. L.V. Mikheeva believes that at the sound peak "the image of the voivode himself appears - a descending dotted motif from the brass choir, reminiscent of rock themes in other Tchaikovsky works" ^[5] — it is difficult to disagree with such a judgment.    

The author curiously solved the scene of the "conversation" of pan and his servant (figure 10): all on the same dry and sharp ostinate twirls of strings, a bass clarinet stands for the voivode, and flutes in a low register act for the lad. Trombone pedal chords add ominous colors to this difficult dialogue for both actors.   

The middle section (Moderato a tempo) is impressively instrumented. The absurd strings playing pianissimo, together with the light passages of celesta, soft harp chords, the closed (sons bouches), as if in the distance, the sound of French horns and the barely audible tremolo of timpani create a magical atmosphere of a warm and dark Ukrainian night. Against this wonderful background, the woodwinds carry out their sad theme. Clarinets are missing, and this is an important and characteristic detail: Tchaikovsky removes the warmest timbre, and the acoustic distance between high flutes, oboes and low bassoons turns out to be, in fact, unfilled. It seems that the author needed a certain "chill" coming from the words of the panel. Her lover's lines, given first to a group of violas, and then to violas with cellos, are much more saturated in terms of sound and emotion. They are excited, passionate, demanding.

It is difficult to imagine that the composer instrumented this episode "from scratch": the music was born with a sense of timbre, instrumental color. The ballad program itself dictated one or another sound solution to the author. In the garden scene, Tchaikovsky anticipates both the future achievements of the author of Kitezh, and the orchestral finds and conquests of the coming era of French Impressionism ^[13]. Could contemporaries understand and accept the composer in this new symphonic guise for him? The question remains open.

In the short coda, Tchaikovsky removes all high timbres, leaving the bass clarinet, bassoons, French horns (in an extremely low, "hoarse" register), trombones with tuba, timpani tremolo and a long double bass pedal (numbers 22 and 23). Some of the voices in this intimidating group of instruments slowly "crawl" down the semitones. A powerful, tragic cluster sounds, in which it is difficult to distinguish individual tones. Tchaikovsky accompanies the voivode on his last journey with a weeping instrumental choir and without any regret. Timbres and their combinations, texture, harmonic astringency, dynamic expressiveness in the code are akin to the sonoristics of the twentieth century, in any case, all of the above are its primary formative elements ^[11].  

The tonal and harmonic plan of the ballad indicates the composer's desire to refresh her auditory perception all the time. The author returns the initial a-moll only on the last pages of the score, in the code. Three waves of jumps are carried out sequentially in a-moll, b-moll and h-moll. In the reprise, Tchaikovsky presents the same material already in cis-moll.

In the middle episode ("They enter the garden — and through the branches, / On a bench by the fountain, / In a white dress, they see a lady / And the man in front of her") the composer sends listeners not only into the dialogue of lovers filled with passionate speeches, but also into the Es-dur tonality as far as possible from the main a-moll. Pannochka's story is given in c-moll, the monologue "men in front of her" is in e-moll.

The composer often uses non-chordal sounds (almost all types of non-chordal tones), his tendency to "soft" dissonance is well known ^[4]. In "Voivode" we find complex polystructural harmonic formations similar to cluster combinations, with peculiar sound "clusters". Let's add numerous pedals to the general tonal-harmonic plan (the initial scenes of the jump, first of all), organ points, ostinate movements, as well as the composer's desire to rearmonize very significantly, and thus update the repetitive sections of the form. 

Tchaikovsky modulates simply, naturally and always in the shortest possible way, relying primarily on the bends of the melodic line (the role of enharmonic substitutions is great!). At the same time, the active role of the melodic principle is manifested in him and within the harmonic vertical itself. Melody, thematism in "Voivode" affects the very essence of ladofunctional connections, burdening them with a polyphonic beginning. Let's highlight (in general, inherent in Tchaikovsky's work) the "blurriness" (due to numerous modulations) of tonal foundations, their certain unsteadiness. Let's agree, all these are signs of the emerging art of the twentieth century.

Tchaikovsky complicated his harmonic language throughout his creative life. His "Short Textbook of Harmony", compiled in 1874 ^[9], when the composer was only 34 years old, is quite simple. The author presents here in an abbreviated form a theoretical course on harmony, taught by him when he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory (1866-1878). Here is the composer's thought given in the conclusion of his work: "Based on pure empiricism, musical theory rests on a very shaky foundation, since the conclusions about the euphony of certain sound combinations inevitably involve the individual sense of the observer, and individualities are infinitely diverse. Therefore, much that is rejected by other theorists is accepted and allowed by others" ^{[4, p. 216]}. It should be noted that it is the individual principle in Tchaikovsky's harmony in general, and in "Voivode" in particular, that attracts us most of all in his work.

It is necessary to say separately about Tchaikovsky's dynamic instructions in Voivode. There are not just a lot of them (and the remarks themselves are striking in their thoroughness), but they play an important role in creating a common sound environment, make a significant contribution to the emotional palette of the ballad, to its sonorous component. In fact, not a single bar is given by the author to the free interpretation of the orchestral musician. The composer is demanding, because everything must work for the overall picture (the symphonic picture!), correspond to the detailed plan of the work.

In long increments from ppp to fff, Tchaikovsky accurately calculates the volume of sound, placing all the intermediate dynamic signs, requires prolonged playing on pianissimo from all groups of the orchestra, even from those who cannot play too quietly due to the design features of the instruments. In many episodes, the author highlights the dynamics of the voices he needs ("For a musician, the score is not only a collection of various notes and pauses, but a whole picture, among which the main figures, secondary and secondary, and, finally, the background stand out clearly"). In figure 10, the bass clarinet is required to enter f (ma espressivo, quasi parlando) on the ppp of the entire orchestra. The composer highlights the voivode's direct speech ("Prepare a bag, a rope, / Yes, take the rifle off the nail. / Well, follow me!.. I love her!") not only timbrally, but also dynamically.

Tchaikovsky solved the episode of the climactic decline before the reprise very interestingly (Moderato before the number 19), short dynamic "waves" are the most difficult for the orchestra here. The composer alternates the bars on piano and forte for a long time (sometimes on ff and even fff) in a dense texture saturated with the polyphonic movement of voices. The distance between the dynamic poles is constantly decreasing, as if the breathing is becoming faster, the pulse is speeding up. Now it is no longer a beat, but each subsequent fraction becomes a dynamic extreme, preparing the return of the initial material of the angry horse racing scene, depicting the wild temper of the commander blinded by jealousy.   

A.N. Dolzhansky speaks about the "impressive" coda in the ballad ("the final part itself is very bright and impressive" ^{[3, p. 237]}). It begins with a "shot" on fff in tutti, but before this deafening chord, Tchaikovsky requires strings and woodwinds to play sempre pppp for a long time, which is almost impossible at a rapid pace (numbers 20 and 21). The last bars of the Voivode strike with an aggressive dynamic line: bassoons, French horns in extremely low register, trombones, tuba and timpani with double basses repeat the two—stroke structure several times with an "inflating" sonority from pp to ff - a visible, orchestral juicy, tragically outlined statement of death.

The tempo in the ballad is for the most part mobile, the composition resembles a compressed spring, which is released only in the last bars of the score. The articulation palette is diverse, thought out by the author to the smallest detail, all instructions should add colors to the musical fabric, emphasize the main orchestral lines, highlight the most important voices and intonations. There is one strange detail in the notes of the composition, even a mystery: the composer asks the string players to play the middle section of the piece with mutes, which fully corresponds to the nature of their soft and hidden accompaniment with wooden wind instruments. But the instruction to remove the mute is placed only before the beginning of the reprise. Does this mean that the strings should play the entire lyrical, powerfully anthemic climax with the mutes? Is there any logic in this? Is there a mistake? It seems that every performer (conductor and orchestra) has the right to independently solve the problem we have identified.    

The compositional idea of "Voivode" is inspired by Pushkin's poem: a free three-part form with a very short reprise and a small expressive coda, in which, in fact, the drama's denouement takes place. Some truncation of the general design fully corresponds to the Mickiewicz-Pushkin thriller: the death of the governor comes quickly and completely unexpectedly. In the first movement, which paints a picture of a furious leap (Allegro vivacissimo), Tchaikovsky builds two culminating waves, gradually connecting more and more new orchestral resources. The thematic material (rapid pulsation at 9/8, three-part splitting and combining durations, ostinate rhythms) contains rich opportunities for motivational development. The transition to the garden scene — the expanded middle part of the ballad — is based on the same nervous pulsation of the strings (gradually weakening) and the "talkative" intonations of the flutes in the low register and the bass clarinet, in which the replicas of the angry pan and his sluggish lad are easily guessed.

The middle part, which is central both in size and emotional content, transports listeners into a poetic, even magical sound world. It, in turn, is also written in three-part form with a reprise culminating on a lyrical love theme. The role of the middle section is played here by a delightful episode of imagery and freshness with the solo of Celesta and flutes (Allegro moderato). The lyrical climax is based on the full-blooded (for the first time in the ballad) sound of violins in a high register, on the anthemic chanting of love and hopes associated with it, which is so familiar to us from Tchaikovsky. The reprise compressed to the limit is again a brief dialogue between the governor and his servant, after which the hour of reckoning comes — the code: the lad, having "missed", kills his master. 

Dolzhansky believes that following the episode of the voivode's death, Tchaikovsky should have returned to the love theme and built a final climax on it, that as an "interpreter of events" he did not reveal the poet's main idea, did not show "the victory of a young beautiful impulse to happiness over the forces oppressing him", that the ballad "lacks the return of a beautiful lyrical theme, the victorious song of triumphant love is missing" ^{[3, p. 238]}. Let's try to disagree with the venerable scientist. Pushkin has no "hints" of "triumphant love", he ends his poem with a massacre of the hated despot ("A shot was fired in the garden. / The lad did not wait for pan; / The governor screamed, / The governor staggered... / The lad, apparently, missed: / Hit him right in the forehead"), moreover, the poet does not express any sympathy for either the pannochka or her young lover, he only brilliantly retells A. Mickiewicz, remaining a bystander of the accomplished drama.

Tchaikovsky follows Pushkin's text extremely accurately and with great sincerity, this is his method of working with the program (on top of Stasov's libretto for the fantasy "The Tempest" he writes in pencil the names of numerous Shakespearean characters, they enrich his thought, musical fabric, but, in fact, remain a mystery to listeners ^{[2, p. 64]}), he cannot afford to speak for the poet, to violate his concept, his classically clear literary form. "Voivode" completes the composer's peculiar triptych on the theme of "forbidden love" (fantasy overture "Romeo and Juliet", fantasy "Francesca da Rimini") and in none of these plays does the author decide on the final "victory song of triumphant love". The images of lovers hiding from retribution excite him, the tragic endings of their stories are in tune with his own artistic worldview, but there can be no happy end here by definition. However, if Tchaikovsky had lived and worked during Dolzhansky's time, in the era of victorious socialist realism, he would most likely have had to radically change his concept.

In his brilliant "Memoirs of Russia" L.L. Sabaneev wittily describes the relationship between Taneyev and Tchaikovsky, in this pair the latter looked more like an obedient student than an internationally recognized master: "[Tchaikovsky] was a typical Russian intellectual, quiet, simple, very absent-minded and shy to the point of torment. He had a special friendship with S. I. Taneyev, full of mutual respect. Taneyev was his pupil, but at that time it seemed that he was more of a mentor: he was somehow musically wiser and more reasonable — I could already see then that Tchaikovsky obeyed Taneyev. He constantly confided to him his creative ideas, doubts and worries (and how often these doubts were!), brought everything he had just written." When showing Taneyev his new works, Pyotr Ilyich used to say: "Here, Sergey Ivanovich, I brought some rubbish." One day Tchaikovsky presented the Sabaneyev boy with an almost destroyed manuscript of his Fifth Symphony: "The manuscript was torn in half, and on the title page there was an inscription in red pencil across: "Terrible abomination." Handing me this monument to his neurasthenia, Pyotr Ilyich said affectionately: "When you are a composer, do not write so badly" ^{[7, p. 54]}.

Could Tchaikovsky resist Taneyev's criticism? Even if he wasn't sure about the compositional merits of the Fifth Symphony and "Iolanthe"? Much later, Taneyev admitted that he was wrong about the Voivode ("there are so many interesting things in it that it is a sin to destroy it" [Heritage, p. 306]). Dolzhansky even considered that Sergei Ivanovich "bitterly regretted the negative judgment he too hastily expressed to Tchaikovsky" ^{[3, p. 234]}. Taneyev (in our opinion, unfairly) considered the expanded middle part of the ballad "incomparably inferior in its musical merits to similar episodes in previous compositions by Pyotr Ilyich." In a letter to his brother Modest Ilyich, as early as 1901, he even suggested that "it was apparently composed not as an orchestral work, but as a romance", and that "this romance, performed without words by orchestral instruments, gives a somewhat vague impression" ^{[6, p. 307]}.

It is difficult to accept this point of view. The oboe theme belongs to Tchaikovsky's most captivating instrumental melodies, it continues the clarinet "Francesca's story" in a peculiar way, fifteen years later, and the deeply emotional, flexible, warm and passionate viola-cello thematism that follows it echoes similar inspired episodes in The Nutcracker. Later, the middle episode of the ballad was remade by the composer into an independent piano piece Aveu x passionne ("Passionate Confession"), Tchaikovsky, apparently, it was not easy to part with the melodies he loved, he definitely considered them quite a worthy result of his intense creative work. 

According to L.A. Barenboim, already in the conservatory class of A.G. Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky learned professional compositional work, culture and discipline of work, the professor brought up in him the ability to "manage his creative process, subordinate it to his will" ^{[2, p. 56]}. Tchaikovsky worked extremely intensively all his life, his manuscripts and sketches show incredible thoroughness, thoughtfulness of all, even the smallest details, the strictest intellectual control, critical analysis of what was written, numerous improvements to the finished material, sometimes capital editing of published works for subsequent publications and performances. His creative process continued without the slightest interruptions, his demands on himself were exorbitant.

In the excellent study "The Creative Archive of P.I. Tchaikovsky" ^[2] P.E. Weidman gives many examples of the composer's work on his works, shares his impressions of studying musical sketches, sheets with sketches, notebooks and notebooks. None of Tchaikovsky's compositions prepared for performance were accidental, hasty or insufficiently edited, but always the result of a deep study of the literary plot, musical material, the result of careful selection, individual harmonic and stylistic solutions, and an intense search for a new compositional structure.

The performer must follow the composer's score as faithfully as possible, without paying attention to the critical reasoning of the most venerable colleagues or researchers. Tchaikovsky's musical text provides answers to any questions, because it is here that his brilliant creative nature is revealed most fully. The wise A.G. Schnittke formulated the same idea somewhat differently, but we will bring it to confirm our own conclusions: "The whole life of Peter Ilyich (and his diaries testify to this) is an ordinary, everyday level. He is unable to define what he has achieved with his music. Because it immeasurably exceeds his life" ^{[1, p. 37]}.

Such is the symphonic ballad "Voivode" — a careful study of Tchaikovsky's late text allows us, boldly rejecting idle negative statements, to plunge into the depths of his compositional thought, to examine the work through an auditory magnifying glass, to accept the score pages as the truth that needs to be comprehended. Moreover, these pages are dotted with author's remarks, secret signs and symbols: the composer carefully "leads" the performer literally "by the arm", pointing the way to an accurate reading of his so difficult-born and painfully "published" brainchild.