Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b (Les Saisons, aka Op. 37a)

The Seasons and Serenade for Strings were composed in the second half of the 1870s – early 1880s, in a period of the composer’s first creative uplift. Those were the years when the author of Symphony No. 4, Eugene Onegin and Swan Lake stepped into an age of genuine artistic maturity, and not only his large-scale dramatic opuses but also smaller pieces composed for a narrower circle have the seal of that maturity. Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s compositions are performed by the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evgeni Svetlanov, a recognized master of interpretation of Russian symphonic music from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Awarded a Repertoire 10 by Classica Magazine, this 1979 recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is coupled on disc 2 with Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, and is performed by Herve le Floch with Les Solistes de France directed by Jean-Claude Hartemann.

The splendour of Russia’s ballet tradition is evoked in spectacular scores by Rimsky-Korsakov, Khachaturian and Glazunov, while Shostakovich espouses modernism – and ‘Tea for Two’. The exotic Scheherazade, which inspired a steamy harem scenario from Diaghilev and Fokine, is here entrusted to Riccardo Muti. Aram Khachaturian himself conducts excerpts from Spartacus – including the sweepingly romantic and justly celebrated Adagio; another, contracting highlight comes with the fiery Sabre Dance from the same composer’s Gayaneh.

Tchaikovsky wrote The Seasons in 1875–76 for the music magazine Nuvellist, which had commissioned a character piece for every month of the year, to be published in successive issues. The composer – than at the height of his powers and position – did not take the job terribly seriously, and reportedly told his assistant to remind him of the task on a given day every month. Although The Seasons has had admirers over the years, the set as a whole has never attained wide popularity. Nonetheless, two movements were immediately recognised as minor masterpieces: the graceful ‘Barcarolle’ (June) and the evocative, jingly ‘In the Troika’ (November). But there are other lovely sections, notably the perfumed ‘White Nights’ and ringing ‘Christmas’. Mily Balakirev’s ‘oriental fantasy’ Islamey is one of the most technically difficult works in the repertoire. Composed in 1869, the piece is believed to have been conceived as a sketch for a longer, orchestral work. In the decades around the turn of the century, it became a favourite with such leading virtuosi as Anton Rubinstein and, later, Josef Hofmann. As a score that demands the fanciest of finger work, as well as an extraordinary range of tone color and some intensity of conviction, Islamey suits Yefim Bronfman’s big-boned virtuosity to a T.

Upon the death of Mlle. Boulanger, Naoumoff took over her classes at the summer sessions of the Conservatoire d'Art Americain in Fontainebleau. In 1981, at age 19, he was signed as a composer -- the youngest on their roster -- with the music publisher Schott, Mainz. Naoumoff's reputation as a piano virtuoso dates from 1984 when he substituted without notice for a stricken pianist in a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Monte Carlo. That concert earned him the comparisons to Horowitz and Rubinstein, displaying -- as one critic remarked -- the fire of the former and the poetry of the latter. In the years since, he is regularly invited by the world's premier orchestras: the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony in Washington, Moscow Symphony, etc…And has collaborated closely with renowned conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Igor Markevitch, Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich and Eliahu Inbal and others.

The Seasons, Op.37a (pubished with the French title Les Saisons) is a set of twelve short character pieces for solo piano by the Russian composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsk. Each piece is the characteristic of a different month of the year in the northern hemisphere. The work is also sometimes heard in orchestral and other arrangements by other hands. Individual excerpts have always been popular - Barcarolle (June) was enormously popular and appeared in numerous arrangements.

Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The Tempest and Hamlet as well. Although styled an 'Overture-Fantasy' by the composer, the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata form with an introduction and an epilogue. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story.

Adagio Lamentoso is the fourth movement of the Symphony No. 6, Pathétique. Tchaikovski dedicated it to Vladimir "Bob" Davydov, composer's nephew with whom he was in love. The Pathétique has been the subject of a number of theories as to a hidden program. This goes back to the first performance of the work, when fellow composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov asked Tchaikovsky whether there was a program to the new symphony, and Tchaikovsky asserted that there was, but would not divulge it.