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Rachmaninov and Taneyev: Yefim Bronfman (piano)  Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi (guest conductor), Symphony Center, Chicago 18.10.2008 (JLZ). 

Rachmaninov:   Piano Concerto no. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Taneyev:   Symphony no. 4 in C minor, Op. 12


The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s recent concert of music by Rachmaninov and Taneyev was an exemplary effort. Consisting of two works, Sergei Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto and Sergei Taneyev’s Fourth Symphony, the program played to the strengths of the ensemble.  While Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto is a familiar part of the repertoire, the other work, Taneyev’s Fourth Symphony is rarely heard, and even when performed it is not always rendered with the style and grace that the Neeme Järvi and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra gave it. The atmosphere was clearly charged, with intense musical involvement through both works in the program.

The concert opened with Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concert, a work composed in 1909 and given its premiere in October that years by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra led by Gustav Mahler, with the composer as soloist. As pointed out in the program notes, the fortunes of this work and other music by Rachmaninov have varied in the last century. If aspects of accessibility are a problem for appreciating the composer, as some have alleged, the fault is not in the performers. In a score that has a popular appeal and also demands virtuosic execution, the masterful rendering by Yefim Bronfman delivered all of  the intensity that this work deserves. While the opening of the first movement was relatively reserved, Bronfman allowed the tension to build incrementally. He was precise without being pedantic, and when the score required virtuosity, he delivered the more complex passages as coolly as he would the less demanding ones.

The interaction between the soloist and conductor seemed minimal at the outset, but by the cadenza that intersects the recapitulation, Bronfman and Järvi were clearly in deft communication. Bronfman demonstrated his full command of the score which  allowed him to make the sometimes thickly voiced chords distinctive. His dynamic levels were varied, and in making the dynamic distinctions, he also supported the structure of the music. The  logic of every phrase  was emphasised as he brought the movement to its conclusion with both zeal and panache. Bronfman approached the first movement tirelessly, to deliver not only the content of the score, but at the same time allowing for greatly nuanced expressiveness. To the movement’s conclusion he gave all  the power that some pianists reserve for the finale, something entirely appropriate to the style of the work. By doing this, Bronfman also set the stage for the drastically different character of the middle movement in which the strings of the Chicago Symphony gave a particularly warm reading. With  its more reflective mood, the second movement was an opportunity for Rachmaninov to build a character piece, and the sense of ensemble that Järvi created fitted it exactly. Again, the internal logic of the musical structure was emphasised beautifully.

To the Finale Bronfman’s virtuosity brought precision, without allowing for empty gesture  or melodramatic showmanship. Järvi matched this with  a mature interpretation that found its expression in pacing which kept the orchestra exactly together with the soloist’s ideas. Never once overly emphatic or archly expressive, Järvi shaped the orchestra and interacted with Bronfman’s intentions perfectly. As a result, the entire ensemble delivered a memorable and powerful reading of this familiar score, providing a precise yet moving performance which delighted the audience .

Taneyev’s Fourth Symphony (1896-98)  is something of a rarity in the United States, and the performances of the work this season are firsts  for the Chicago Symphony. Nonetheless, with Järvi’s leadership, the performance on Saturday evening sounded polished and comfortable. Known best, perhaps, as the model that Rimsky-Korsakov suggested when he asked the young Igor Stravinsky to compose a symphony, Taneyev’s Fourth is regarded as its composer’s best effort in the genre.

Taneyev uses a conventional four-movement structure for the Fourth Symphony, with the structural weight in the outside movements. The first movement is distinctive for the contrapuntal textures uses to develop the three-note theme that pervades its structure.  The brass are prominent and are almost antiphonal with the strings in many sections. Such scoring allows the counterpoint to become aurally transparent as the theme is developed rhythmically and  interactions  between the opening theme and ideas built around it intersect. While the brass timbres sometimes dominated the performance, Järvi nonetheless maintained clarity through his clear direction and sensitivity to the hall’s acoustics.

In the second movement, Taneyev offers a contrast with  longer, more cantabile melodies, in which strings and woodwinds are prominent. The oboe particularly, has many demanding solo passages. The Scherzo that follows is a light textured movement differing from those of contemporaries like Bruckner and Mahler in its relatively playful character, resembling in fact the kinds of scherzos that Jean Sibelius would pursue in this own symphonies. The scherzo of the  Taneyev Fourth also offers yet further contrast to the first movement, before he brings the work to its conclusion in the cyclic Finale. Here themes found earlier in the work, along with reminiscences of ideas that resemble music by Wagner may be heard. As the work resolves in the major mode, the fanfares that occur at the conclusion suggest, however remotely, the celebratory style of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger without necessarily making direct quotations from that work. All in all, Taneyev’s Fourth Symphony contains sufficient character to  allow it to return to future programs of the Chicago Symphony and other orchestras.

While the first half of the program was devoted to a familiar work the inclusion of the Taneyev created some excitement by giving the audience something new to and attractive hear. Such masterful programming is all the more  laudable because it was a solution to the cancellation of  Ricardo Chailly’s planned visit, which would have involved performances of Deryck Cooke’s performing score of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony and Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony. The Chicago Symphony found an excellent outlet for Järvi and Bronfman in the program of these two  works by Russian composers.

James L. Zychowicz


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