Sergei Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27

Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, in 1873, Sergei Rachmaninov was a brilliant pianist, composer and conductor. At age nine he entered the College of Music in St. Petersburg. In 1885 he was sent to the Moscow Conservatory and in 1892, at the age of nineteen, he graduated with high honors, winning a gold medal for his one-act opera Aleko.

Rachmaninov composed his Second Symphony in 1906-07, and conducted the premiere in St. Petersburg on February 8, 1908.  The score, dedicated to Sergei Taneyev, calls for 3 flutes and piccolo, 3 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, and strings.

Rachmaninov worked on his Second Symphony in Dresden and at Ivanovka in 1906 and '07. He was not happy with the first draft, and had to force himself to complete the score, after declaring that he had neither the ability nor the desire to write symphonies. Perhaps the failure of his First Symphony, conducted by Alexander Glazunov, still rankled, after ten years, after his success in all his subsequent endeavours, after his having received the Glinka Prize for the Second Concerto in 1904. In any event, he did complete the Second Symphony, and this time he conducted the premiere himself; it was a great success, and ten months after the premiere the work brought him another Glinka Prize.

Melody abounds in this symphony, as it does in all of Rachmaninov’s works. In his book on Russian music, Alfred J. Swan observed that

when composers in general were preoccupied with tone colours and their various orchestral refractions and were more fascinated with new harmonic combinations, and when melody conceived as a vital ingredient of composition was all but lost, Rachmaninov’s genius manifested itself in the shaping of renewed melodic form.

Rachmaninov did have a concern for colour, though, as is gloriously clear in his masterly writing for the orchestra, always subtle and evocative rather than merely splashy. This and his sure sense of structural proportion need no more pointing out than the enchanting themes themselves.

While the Second is a long symphony, its language is so straightforward that detailed analysis would be gratuitous. The four movements constitute a sort of dramatic sequence identified with the specifically Russian symphonic tradition typified in such otherwise highly individualized works as the Fifth symphonies of Tchaikovsky (1888) and Prokofiev (1944) and both of the unaccountably neglected symphonies of Mily Balakirev (whose Second was brought out in the same year as Rachmaninov’s). The first movement here, following its brooding and mysterious introduction, is intensely dramatic, alternating between stormy conflict and serene visions, and preparing us for the still greater variety of mood in the movements to come.

In both of Rachmaninov’s four-movement symphonies (the last, No. 3, is cast in three movements) the scherzo precedes the slow movement, following a pattern established by Borodin and Balakirev (and taken up later by Shostakovich and Prokofiev). The scherzo in the Second is vigorous to the point of abandon, but with a lyrical second subject related to the initial motif of the preceding movement, which in fact serves as a "motto" for the entire work. The brilliant trio suggests a procession or parade through a village fair. The brief brass chorale at the end of this movement, suddenly grim and chilling, makes it clear that the scherzo theme itself is actually derived from the Dies irae, the ancient chant for the dead that was Rachmaninov’s productive obsession throughout his creative life; the aforementioned "motto" is related to it as well.

All sorts of programmatic interpretations have been thrust upon the famous Adagio, but none of these came from Rachmaninov himself. Regardless of the particular spiritual or romantic image the music may evoke on the part of individual listeners, its theme is surely one of the most beautiful Rachmaninov ever conceived--though it, too, is related to the Dies irae. (The giveaway is in the brief prefatory gesture before the seamless presentation of the theme itself.) This theme, initially sung by the first violins, is succeeded by two others of almost equal loveliness, introduced respectively by solo clarinet and taken up by violins and oboe. All three themes are traceable to the "motto," which is to be heard in its original form at the end of the movement, following the grand climax that is the emotional peak of the Symphony. Before that point is reached, the horn, English horn and violin are given eloquent solo passages, and there is an extended reverie for the clarinet, recalling its memorable solos earlier in the movement.

The finale is a typically Russian-symphonic summing-up, sweeping away the clouds and uncertainties of the preceding movements in a grand extrovert gesture. This character is established without preamble, the exultant theme being more or less an inversion of the "motto." Reminiscences of the earlier movements are evoked--some in substance, some only in spirit--and the radiant coda sets the seal on the joyous completion of a spiritual-emotional pilgrimage.