Saturday, June 26, 2010

Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien

Beautiful mixture of Italian folk tunes/dances with Tchaikovsky's unique style. Some think of it as a Russian read of Italian folk tunes. He had Glinka's Spanish fantasies in mind while writing it. He started working on it after he finished his Symphony No.4. So the piece is a "break" after a very serious and compositionally demanding symphony. The work was inspired after Tchaikovsky's trip to Italy and after seeing a street carnival. It would more appropriately be called Capriccio Italiano, but who can deny the influence of French language in Russia's culture in 19th century!

The piece of includes 5 Italian tunes organized as follows: ABABCDAEBE. Apparently two of these themes are clearly identifiable Italian folk melodies.

A is a trumpet call Tchaikovsky heard every morning from the barracks near his hotel in Italy in 1880 (Hotel Constanzi in Rome). It is presented with two trumpets opening the tune and then a fanfare for the brass and then follows:

B a solemn darker melody with its brass rhythmic interjection. Kind of a funeral march.Tchaikovsky has to give a romantic vibe by repeating the tune with oboe playing it. Flute imitation of the tune is beautiful and characteristic of Tchaikovsky. It gets to a climax with a return to opening trumpet call and after another presentation of the march by English horn and bassoon through a bass transition we hear the next tune: C.

C is a swaying dance in 6/8 presented with two oboes in third, then two trumpets in third. The string passages after each motive is again another Tchaikovsky characteristic orchestra writing. When the violins play the tune wood winds response with the passages. This reaches another Tchikovskian climax that leads the piece to: D.

D is another dance in "aba" form. Some people think of it as being more Spanish than Italian? What do Italians say? A horn call transitions the piece back to the opening funeral march (A). Here we remember one of the transitional passages from 1812 overture. Then comes the tarantella (E).

E is the vivid tarantella (also known in Italy as the traditional Cicuzza) and provides the material for Capriccio's dramatic coda. This one is the second identifiable folk tune. Tchaikovsky develops the dance by repeating the tune forward and backwards. Here the excitement builds until with repetition of the 6/8 dance and then we reach another characteristic dramatic ending from Tchaikovsky in Coda when the tarantella comes back. This sounds like the coda of Symphony No.4.

The first performance I heard was played by BPO under Karajan. I have also listened to Solti's rendition with the CSO and BBC PO under... Just saw it on DVD with Kurt Masur conducting Gewandhaus Leipzig orchestra. You can get lots of details while watching it performed. I still have to check out the score.

Let's look at some performance reviews from BBC Music Magazine:

Tchaikovsky

Composer(s):
  • Tchaikovsky
Works:
Manfred; Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture; The Tempest; Serenade in C; Capriccio italien
Performer:
USSR SO/Evgeny Svetlanov
Svetlanov’s muscular style suits Manfred down to the ground, and this is a riveting reading of a work which can easily ramble. The recording is good for its time, and the playing is committed, characterful, and very Russian. The Tempest has the same intensity and drive, but the other performances are routine. Svetlanov seems particularly out of sorts in a tame and lightweight Romeo and Juliet, and the excitement at the end of the Capriccio italien comes too late to redeem it. Martin Cotton
Performance:
*****
Sound:
*****

Tchaikovsky

Composer(s):
  • Tchaikovsky
Titles:
Tchaikovsky
Works:
Symphony No. 5; Capriccio Italien; The Voyevoda
Performer:
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Jarvi
When this Tchaikovsky cycle began with an all too even-tempered Pathétique (October 2004), I asked ‘whatever happened to the creative conducting of Neeme Järvi?’. The question hangs over his Fifth, too. A disciplined master is clearly at work in the first movement – handsomely toning the lower timbres of the introduction, lifting the march of fate-as-providence and giving space around Tchaikovsky’s self-styled ‘theme of love’. The subtle colours of the woodwind-led reprise flash originality, too, in the handsome Gothenburg Concert Hall recording.
Performance:
*****
Sound:
*****

Tchaikovsky

Composer(s):
  • Tchaikovsky
Works:
Capriccio Italien; Francesca da Rimini; Romeo and Juliet; 1812 Overture
Performer:
Israel PO/Leonard Bernstein
Bernstein is at his finest in magnetic accounts of the doom-laden Francesca fantasy (after Canto V of Dante’s Inferno), and the inescapably tragic Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture; both are viscerally exciting, super-charged performances drawn from 1979 analogue sources, now remastered and scarcely inferior to the digital offerings here. The Capriccio Italien and 1812 are delivered with swaggering virtuosity and panache; cannon salvoes, bells and processional brass approach overkill, but with Lenny before a live audience anything could happen, and often did! Michael Jameson
Performance:
*****
Sound:
*****

Tchaikovsky

Composer(s):
  • Tchaikovsky
Works:
Symphony No. 5 in E minor; Capriccio italien
Performer:
LSO/Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
A serviceable, though heavy-handed account of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth from Rozhdestvensky and the LSO. At bargain price, this release combines detailed, if sometimes garish recorded sound with a deeply personal, and therefore uncompromisingly individualistic interpretation of this popular symphony. Despite moments of excitement, it’s all rather predictable; not all of Rozhdestvensky’s impassioned hectoring pays off, but at least the adrenalin flows freely in this unabashed, colourful and urgently projected reading. A simmering, highly charged Capriccio italien completes this issue. Michael Jameson
Performance:
*****
Sound:
*****

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