Ravinia 2024 Issue 6

first performance of the Piano Quintet, op. 57. Shostakovich knew and approved of Tsyganov’s arrangements: “When I hear the transcriptions, I forget meanwhile that I actually composed the Preludes for piano. They sound so violinistic.” In 2000, pianist and composer Lera Auerbach transcribed the remaining five preludes for vio- lin and piano. She also has made complete tran- scriptions of op. 34 for cello and piano (2008) and viola and piano (2010). ANTON RUBINSTEIN (1829–1894) Romance in E-flat major, op. 44, no. 1 (arranged for violin and piano by Henryk Wieniawski) A giant among 19th-century pianists—often compared to Franz Liszt—Anton Rubinstein was born to Jewish parents in the village of Wechwotynetz (or Vykhvatinets), located in the Podolia Province of the Russian Empire. The family later converted to the Greek Orthodox faith. Anton studied piano from the age of 5 with his mother Katherina Khristoforovna. The Ru- binsteins moved to Moscow in 1834 when his father Grigory Romanovich opened a pencil fac- tory. Within two years, Anton began lessons with renowned pianist and pedagogue Alexan- der Villoing, a former student of Irish pianist John Field. Villoing led Anton on an exhaustive concert tour of Russia and Western Europe, where his playing gained the attention of Fry- deryk Franciszek Chopin, Liszt, and Queen Victoria. Anton returned to Russia in 1844 a seasoned mu- sician and, after a brief stay, moved to Berlin for two years of advanced music studies. Rubinstein next relocated to Vienna, where he struggled to establish himself as a piano teacher. In 1848, he returned to Russia under the patronage of the Grand Duchess Yelena Pavlovna (formerly Princess Friederike Charlotte Marie of Württem- berg), who provided the musician living quar- ters in the Mikhailovsky Palace. This assistance allowed Rubinstein to focus on his career as a Anton Rubinstein pianist, conductor, and composer. The Grand Duchess also provided support as co-founder of Rubinstein’s two ambitious ventures: the Rus- sian Music Society (1859) and the St. Petersburg Conservatory (1862), which initially convened at the palace. For his extraordinary contributions to Russian musical life, Rubinstein received the Order of Saint Vladimir in 1869, granting him the rights of hereditary nobility. Rubinstein’s 1859 collection of solo-piano salon pieces, Six soirées à Saint-Petersbourg , op. 44, dates from this period. Published in two vol- umes, the set was dedicated to the Countess Gisella Hadik de Futak, whom Rubinstein might have met in Vienna before her 1850 marriage to Philipp Joseph Rudolf von Stadion, Duke of Sta- dion zu Warthausen. The first soirée , entitled “Romance,” was an instant hit that also came to be known in a song version based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Night.” Polish-born violinist Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880) transcribed this music for violin and piano while employed at the Russian Im- perial Court. His connections to the imperial family dated back to his youth, when Nicholas I of Russia provided a scholarship to support his studies and tours. After hearing one of Wieni- awski’s 1848 performances, the renowned Bel- gian violinist and composer Henri Vieuxtemps remarked: “There is no doubt this child is a ge- nius.” Twelve years later, on April 29, 1860, Al- exander II appointed Wieniawski soloist at the imperial court, signing the Polish violinist to the first of three three-year contracts. Before leav- ing for Russia, Wieniawski married the English beauty Isabella Hampton on August 8, 1860. An- ton Rubinstein, who had introduced the couple, walked Isabella down the aisle of the Church of Saint Andrew in Paris. Gioacchino Rossini served as witness, and Vieuxtemps played violin during the ceremony. SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953) Waltz from Cinderella , op. 87 (arranged for violin and piano by Mikhail Fikhtengolts) Prokofiev sparked controversy with his Romeo and Juliet ballet score (1935), which faced dual criticisms for its allegedly “undanceable” music and the contentious decision to give Shake- speare’s tragedy a happy ending. The ballet Henryk Wieniawski received a trial performance but, according to the composer’s autobiography, “It had no suc- cess.” Further, the recently appointed Chairman of the State Committee on the Arts, Platon Ker- zhentsev, ordered a review of the Bolshoy The- ater’s repertoire following its controversial pro- duction of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and the subse- quent editorial critique, “Muddle instead of Mu- sic,” in Pravda (January 28, 1936). These com- bined factors led the Bolshoy to void Prokofiev’s contract and cancel the premiere production of Romeo and Juliet in Moscow, originally sched- uled for 1936. The Kirov Theater in Leningrad (now the Ma- riinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg) mounted a successful production of the revised Romeo and Juliet in 1940. Soon after, the Kirov com- missioned Prokofiev to write a new ballet score. Hoping to avoid the earlier turmoil, he select- ed a less serious subject built on traditional dance numbers, written in a more lyrical, audi- ence-friendly musical style. Prokofiev extensive- ly revised a scenario by Nikolay Volkov in the spring of 1941, while living in a small, quiet da- cha outside Moscow with the writer Mira Men- delsohn (who seven years later would become his second wife). By the end of June, Prokofiev had sketched music for two of the three acts. His new Cinderella ballet borrowed from the Western European folk tale, familiar through sources such as Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Sto- ries or Tales of Times Past, with Morals; 1697) and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales, otherwise known as Grimms’ Fairy Tales ; 1812). The Russian version of Cinderella — Vasilisa the Beautiful , or the Fair —is more frightening, as it features the witch Baba Yaga, who the wicked stepmother hopes will eat Vasilisa. In Volkov’s scenario, the stepmother and her two unsightly Mira Mendelsohn and Sergei Prokofiev (1946) RAVINIAMAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 62