109 / 124
MARIN ALSOP,
conductor
The first-ever “music curator” at Ravinia, Marin
Alsop is overseeing the festival’s multi-year
celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s centennial,
including six concerts with the Chicago Sym-
phony Orchestra this summer. She began her
professional education at The Juilliard School,
where she earned both a bachelor’s and a mas-
ter’s degree, and Yale University, which awarded
her an honorary doctorate in 2017; her career
was launched in 1989 when she became the
first woman to be awarded the Koussevitz-
ky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood,
where she became Bernstein’s first female and
final protégé. She is also the only conductor to
have been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship,
is an honorary member of the Royal Academy
of Music and Royal Philharmonic Society, and
was recently appointed the director of graduate
conducting at the Peabody Institute of Johns
Hopkins University. In addition to her role at
Ravinia, Alsop is central to Bernstein celebra-
tions with the London Symphony Orchestra,
with which she has a close and long-standing
relationship, and the Southbank Centre, where
she is an artist-in-residence. She has been music
director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
since 2007 and is tenured until 2021, having
had success not only with the ensemble but also
with her OrchKids youth music initiative and
the BSO Academy and Rusty Musicians adult
program. She has also been principal conductor
and music director of the São Paulo Sympho-
ny Orchestra since 2012, leading the ensemble
on three extensive European tours to date, and
will become chief conductor of the ORF Vienna
Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019. In addi-
tion to regular engagements with the CSO and
Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Alsop
frequently conducts such European ensembles
as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Filarmonica della
Scala, and London and Royal Philharmonic Or-
chestras. Her extensive discography has earned
multiple
Gramophone
Awards and includes ac-
claimed Brahms, Dvořák, and Prokofiev cycles
on Naxos and further recordings on Decca, Har-
monia Mundi, and Sony Classical. Marin Alsop
made her Ravinia and CSO debuts in 2002 and
tonight makes her fifth season appearance at the
festival.
Tchaikovsky had been consumed with his sixth
symphony. Initial efforts floundered in late
1892, and he discarded one complete sympho-
ny in E-flat major. However, the urge for or-
chestral expression drove him to begin afresh.
Tchaikovsky wrote to his nephew Vladimir
(“Bob”) Davidov—to whom he dedicated the
Symphony No. 6—on February 23, 1893: “You
know that I destroyed the symphony I had com-
posed and partly orchestrated in the autumn.
And a good thing too! There was nothing of in-
terest in it—an empty play of sounds, without
inspiration. Now, on my journey, the idea of a
new symphony came to me, this time one with
a program, but a program that will be a riddle
for everyone. Let them try and solve it. … The
program of this symphony is completely sat-
urated with myself, and quite often during my
journey I cried profusely. …You cannot imagine
my feelings of bliss now that I am convinced that
the time has not gone forever and that I can still
work. Of course, I may be wrong, but I do not
think so.”
His progress report to Davidov outlines an
amazing compositional pace. Tchaikovsky
sketched the first movement in four days. Later,
he added a tragic
Adagio
introduction, whose
bassoon line meticulously anticipates fragments
of the main theme. The complete melody soon
appears in a faster tempo, but, despite this ac-
celeration, the string ensemble struggles vainly
to emerge from under the introduction’s dark
shadow. Tchaikovsky’s fabled lyricism blossoms
in a passionate contrasting theme. Gradual-
ly, the music fades away to sextuple
piano
. The
development literally erupts without warning,
but this also succumbs to the melancholy of
the principal theme. Within this frenzied music
echo tones of an Orthodox funeral chant, un-
mistakable to a Russian audience. Tchaikovsky
recalls his two main themes, and then an ardent
hymn melody provides a solemn conclusion.
Commentators often describe the subsequent
movement as a “limping waltz,” as if the mu-
sic lacked dance-like grace. On the contrary,
Tchaikovsky forges an utterly refined idiom in
an irregular five-beat rhythm. Deluged with
ideas in quintuple time, the composer main-
tains this unusual rhythm in the
trio
. Between
March 13 and 15, the
Allegro molto vivace
move-
ment was drafted in its entirety. This rousing
march, a direct descendent of the ballet scores,
projects such thrilling vitality that audiences
often misinterpret its climactic ending as the
conclusion of the symphony. But the composer
has more to express, and does so in a profound-
ly tormented finale that withers away in a tragic
wisp of sound.
Tchaikovsky completed his sketches on April 5, a
blessed event celebrated with words of gratitude
on the manuscript: “O Lord, I thank thee!” The
orchestration phase was placed on hold while
the composer traveled to London (late May to
early June) to receive an honorary doctorate
from Cambridge University alongside Camille
Saint-Saëns, Arrigo Boito, and Max Bruch. Back
in Russia, Tchaikovsky began orchestrating his
sketches on August 1, slowly at first: “Twenty
years ago I’d have gone full steam ahead. …Now
I’ve become timid, unsure of myself.” However,
on August 31, work on the Sixth drew to a close.
An early draft of the symphony appeared among
the composer’s papers after his death. Written
on the manuscript was the “hidden program”
for this valedictory work: “The ultimate essence
of the plan of symphony is LIFE. First part—all
impulsive passion, confidence, thirst for activity.
Must be short. (Finale DEATH—result of col-
lapse.) Second part love; third disappointments;
fourth ends dying away (also short).” So it was
with the symphony. So it was with Tchaikovsky.
–Program notes © 2018 Todd E. Sullivan
Tchaikovsky and Vladimir (“Bob”) Davidov (1892)
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1893)
JULY 9 – JULY 15, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE
107