Piano Sonata No. 1 (Rachmaninoff)

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The young Rachmaninoff 1901

The Sonata No. 1 in D minor op 28 is a piano sonata composed between 1907 and 1908 by the Russian pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff . She was in on 17 October 1908 Moscow by his friend Konstantin Nikolayevich Igumnov premiered .

In addition to the second symphony , it is the second major work that was created during Rachmaninoff's time in Dresden and from which sketches go back to 1906. The comparatively long composition is overshadowed by the much better known second piano sonata in B flat minor, Op. 36 and has a musical program with reference to the Faust tragedy by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

background

Rachmaninoff did not point out the literary background of the sonata until after the first performance. In a letter to his friend Nikita Morosow, he explained the dimensions of the "bulky and endless" work, with which he was not entirely satisfied. The Sonata would be pulled by an underlying program and a guiding principle in the length - ". Three opposite characters of a literary work" this is it's own , Mephisto and Gretchen from Goethe's tragedy, figures that Rachmaninov impressed similar to previously Franz Liszt , the she had portrayed in his three-movement Faust Symphony . Like his influential predecessor, Rachmaninoff also considered using the material of his piano sonata later for a symphony , but was unable to do so because of the pianistic structure. Oriented towards Liszt, Faust dominates the first, Gretchen the second, and Mephisto the third.

If the sonata was inspired by literature, a little later it would be painting that inspired Rachmaninoff to write a composition. The painting Die Toteninsel by Arnold Böcklin , which he had first seen as a black and white photo in Paris and later viewed in the original in a gallery in Leipzig , impressed him so much that he decided to perform a musical version under the title of the same name, the symphonic poem op. 29, which premiered on April 18, 1909 in Moscow.

About the music and the program

The sonata has a playing time of about 35 minutes and consists of three movements:

  • I. Allegro moderato
  • II. Lento
  • III. Allegro molto

With the melancholy-pathetic tonal language, the dramatic upswings and dynamic increases, like his Preludes and the piano concertos, it belongs to the music of the late Romantic period .


Faust offers Gretchen the arm, by Peter von Cornelius (1811)

The first, simple and resigned theme of the first movement begins with a descending fifth step in D minor and is intended to introduce the thinking of the aging Faust. His brooding seriousness is deepened by the second theme ( Meno mosso ), which can already be heard in bar 15 . The hopelessness leads Faust to suicidal thoughts , from which the daffodils tear him out.

Rachmaninov illustrates the Easter Walk and the Choir of Angels with the third theme in B flat major (Moderato) over a polymetric accompaniment (sixteenth against eighth triplets), for which he resorts to a hymn.

There are pianistic highlights in the implementation of “Auerbach's Cellar” and the “ Hexenküche ”, whose enormous sound masses explain why Rachmaninoff had a symphony in mind. The musical course reflects Goethe's original: Faith believes to see Helena in the magic mirror ("What a heavenly picture / shows itself in this magic mirror! / O love, lend me the fastest of your wings / And lead me into her field!") And wants to look in the mirror again shortly before leaving the witch's kitchen, replies Mephisto: "You see with this drink in your body / Soon Helene in every woman." In the next scene, Faust meets and speaks to Gretchen on the street. Implementing this, the composer adopts the sound material for Margarete from the Fausts, so that she appears as the birth of his head and transforms the church chant into a bright D major . In this key, the movement ends with Faust's first motif, which initially seems to have come to rest.

In contrast, the second movement begins calmly and emotionally with the fifth motif of the Allegro of the left over a triplet movement of the right hand. A simple diatonic melody from bar 8 introduces Gretchen's simple, naive disposition. In the further course the invoice becomes more complex and continues into passages that are reminiscent of Scriabin . In the end, Faust seems to turn away from Margarete under the whispers of the devil - the final chords show gloom and resignation.

The extended third movement is a wild, dynamic parforce ride determined by the witches, Walpurgis Night and above all Mephisto and introduced in unison with a descending octave motif followed by swirling eighth notes. The wild ups and downs connect the movement with the second piano sonata as well as with the third and fourth piano concerto.

From bar 81 ( meno mosso ) a stubbornly descending dotted rhythm surprises with the echo of the dies irae sequence, a wild character image of the devil, who later dominates the action. Even in prison, he interrupts Gretchen's song to alienate her from Faust. As the music escalates to a frenzy, the left hand plays the dies-irae motif to point the way to the Last Judgment .

Origin and reception

While Rachmaninoff was working on his second symphony, he encountered compositional problems, as shown in a letter to Nikita Morozov. The document exemplarily shows the difficulties faced by numerous composers with the traditional sonata form. For Richard Strauss, for example, after Beethoven, it was no longer suitable for expressing the “poetic idea”. Rachmaninov, for whom it was already not easy to persevere thought leadership and tension arcs of longer conceptions, describes in his letter the course of the themes in the context of the sonata main movement up to the recapitulation, but then asks “which form” he chooses, whether he “ resort to the coda "Must or need new topics and that it would surely be" one of those damn rondo shapes ".

In the spring of 1907, Rachmaninov played the work to some friends from the autograph at a soiree in the Moscow apartment of the pianist Vladimir Wilshau . Among the audience was Igumnov, with whom Rachmaninoff's wife had studied the piano and who played the work not only in the Russian capital, but also in Berlin and Leipzig, the city of Auerbach's cellar .

As is so often the case, the self-critical composer was very dissatisfied and was particularly bothered by the exorbitant length of the structure. Before the first performance, he slimmed down the sonata by around 120 bars and deleted many repetitions, which made it look more concentrated. Yet it was not a great success. For example, Joel Engel , who had often advocated Rachmaninoff, wrote that it was not easy for an experienced pianist to “find their way through the tangle of passages, rhythms, harmonies and polyphonic interweaving.” The work captivates with its perfect form and one Abundance of beautiful details, leaving a dry impression on the listener, so that Igumnow is to be commended for his well thought-out interpretation.

literature

  • Ewald Reder: Sergej Rachmaninow - life and work (1873-1943) . 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, pp. 234–242

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quotation from: Ewald Reder: Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 234
  2. ^ Ewald Reder: Sergej Rachmaninow - Life and Work (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 234
  3. ↑ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 243
  4. ↑ Harenberg piano music guide, 600 works from the baroque to the present, Sergei Rachmaninow, Sonata No. 1 in D minor op. 28, Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 651
  5. ^ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873–1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 236
  6. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : The tragedy first part . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume 3, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 78
  7. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The tragedy first part . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume 3, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 84
  8. ^ So Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 237
  9. ↑ Harenberg piano music guide, 600 works from the baroque to the present, Sergei Rachmaninow, Sonata No. 1 in D minor op. 28, Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 651
  10. ↑ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 243
  11. ↑ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 239
  12. ↑ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873–1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 240
  13. ↑ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 280
  14. ↑ Quotation from: Ewald Reder: Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 241
  15. ^ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873–1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 241
  16. ↑ Ewald Reder, Sergej Rachmaninow - Leben und Werk (1873-1943) , 3rd edition, Triga, Gründau-Rothenbergen, 2007, p. 242