Three Piano Concertos

The entire history of the Soviet and Russian music can be traced through a biography of our living legend of art - Tikhon Khrennikov. He not only lived and went through our music history - he was one of it’s creators.  His music is integral with the history, his compositions are its important landmarks.           

One of the outstanding features of Khrennikov’s image as a composer has always been and still remains the unique and brilliant talent to always adhere to melody as a source for composition. When Khrennikov began to compose he faced a number of contradictions that characterized music epoch of those days, when melody itself was of minor importance. Quite recently, just a couple of decades ago, composing melodious music was considered to be nearly a bad manner. Just lately the world has started to recover from this freeze, bringing back the lost melodiousness even to minimalism and postmodernism. Tikhon Khrennikov was always among those who never forgot about melody, who did not betray his principles in search of positive reviews from influential critics. And he usually proved to be right.           

Today is the best time to quote a small fragment from the composer’s diary, where he nearly declared his creative program and the aim. “What kind of methods should we use to properly reflect our epoch? Of course it should be a method with the same characteristics as our life: rhythmical simplicity and clearness, monumentality and integrity of the form, harmonious courage and expediency. Courage should manifest a simple harmony, but not a complicated one (though, if complexity is expedient it is good as well), since nowadays it is very courageous to take a simple triad. Simplicity and lucidity of style, domination of melody as a principle (because melody is the key element of music expressiveness) and dynamics – are, to my mind, the three formal features characterizing true compositions of our epoch. And only a composer’s penetration into the epoch, his devotion to the internal aspects of our life can inspire these formal elements, can make music rich, as it does not depict subjects - it expresses them in motion. And the better, deeper and acuter a composer understands and penetrates into the epoch, the more powerful, dramatic and natural his compositions will be.”           

In the very beginning of Khrennikov’s career, his talent and original voice were already known and praised both by our audience and the greatest world performers, who brought his music into the most general public. Actually, apart from the bright originality and artistic importance of his early famous compositions, is there any other way to account for the careful attention paid by the greatest world-known conductors, such as Leopold Stokovsky, Eugene Ormandi, Charles Munche, Gvido Adler and Willy Ferrero?Since 1930-s Khrennikov represented the most talented and first-string generation of Soviet composers. This period also determined the principal genres involving his original zest. Since that distant time he remained true to himself, though his musical palette enriched substantially and genre diapason became more comprehensive. But there remained adherence to expressive melody, penetrating lyricism and zest for life, typical intonation and harmonic structures – all that reveals his style from the first few moments of sounding.   From “A man for all times” by Lev Ginsburg. Piano Concerto # 1 (1932 - 1933)  This Concerto is one of the earliest compositions written by Tikhon Khrennikov. In the list of his opuses it is registered under number one. The first three parts of the concerto were written by spring 1933 and then performed by the author together with the Moscow Conservatoire symphonic orchestra under conduction of N. Anosov. By autumn of the same year the composer wrote the forth part – Finale of Concerto, and its final version was performed as a premiere over the radio.   For the first time a Piano Concerto written by a Soviet composer received a wide recognition both in his own country as well as abroad. And this success was promoted by original performance of the author and, of course, the music itself. Here T. Khrennikov expressed the spirit of the time he lived in. His composition was marked with juvenility of not only one composer, but of the whole Soviet Art that had just entered the vein period full of characters and feelings of new life, that was a subject of true belief among the youth of those days. This explains vivacity of Concerto’s music, where lyricism and humor compete with each other, rhythmical power and sudden contrasts carry you away, the piano style is brilliant in itself. Everything reveals originality of a young composer, and it is perceptible even now. The composition written by a student from Conservatoire has survived through time, and time has proven its artistic value, highly appreciated by the first audience.  Concerto is written in a rare for this genre four-party form with an explicit domination of swift motion. The first part reminds of a full of energy toccata with prevalence of dynamic movements, regularity of passage works, where we can trace anti-romantic trends popular in those days. But the second part makes us reconsider this opinion, as this part is marked with a deep melodious breath; its leitmotif is given in progress and then leads to a strong climax, revealing the traits of a Russian character peculiar for a young composer. Lyrical expressiveness of this Andante is highlighted by dynamics of the two following parts, especially Finale, full of joy and glee, increasing up to the closing pages, where bravura passage works of piano support the clear and precise phrases of orchestra. A dynamic theme of the third part - impetuous scherzo – reminds of young Prokofjev’s images, while in two contrasting Finale melodies there sound a deep breath of Russian melodiousness, as well as a clear-cold color of Grig’s harmonies.   After graduation from conservatoire Tikhon Khrennikov, enthusiastic for writing music in various genres, quit concerto activity. Only in late 1950-s he performed his concerto himself again and was on a tour in USSR and abroad until the middle 1990-s.  Piano Concerto # 2 (1971) Concerto # 2, though separated from the first one by three decades, continues the trend defined in early compositions. It is akin with Concerto # 1 due to a perfect understanding of pianism nature specifically in concerto meaning, as well as awareness of piano and orchestra ensemble, and ability to create various sophisticated passage formulas. But, if we look deeper, we can notice that musical images of Piano Concerto # 2 possess various traits of all previous Concertos ever written by the composer: dynamic rush of Piano Concerto # 1; colorful and harmonious vivacity of Violin Concerto # 1; deep philosophical, poetic and genre character of Cello Concerto # 1. This comprises the oeuvre of a talented artist in progress – he does not change, but he is new. The uniqueness of Khrennikov’s musical language is in combination of perpetual esthetical principles, characteristic traits of individual style and perception of new trends, created by time and evolution.  A critic Inokentiy Popov commented on Piano Concerto # 2 in the following way: “the composer’s imagination is generous and rich. The music of the Second Concerto shines and sparkles. But remarkable is the following: the form of the Second Concerto is sharply embossed; a stormy creative imagination is put through the composer’s crystal thinking. It is very decent with ultimate compression and strong texture. All details are gold-worked. And, what is very essential in this case, the solo part for piano is a true show piece.” Among the absolute merits of this Concerto, besides laconism and musical fidelity, are a deep national character of Russian music and modern means of its expression, opulent sounding of orchestra and a rich piano part, increasing polyphony role and bright major sounding.  Technical means of the piano part, together with a variety of orchestral colors, add peculiar brilliance to Khrennikov’s music, ascending one step up to a show piece. The Second Concerto looks solemn, attracting with its colorful and even elegant sound. Bright melody of the theme, first presented in a challenging piano solo, opens and closes Concerto and acts as an arch bonding the whole construction. The synchronism of opening and closing parts highlights partition harmony. Introduction and coda of Finale balance the momentum of two central parts, embracing them with isles of solemn calm.                        

In Concerto # 2 the increased polyphony role becomes more noticeable and considered to be one of the essential formative factors. It is connected with the content of the composition itself as well as with the former favor of its author: among favorite composers Khrennikov constantly names Bach, whose plays he performed, being a student of Conservatoire, and was praised by Neigaus. Khrennikov’s approach to polyphony is independent; the composer brings in peculiar temperament and uniquely uses expressive potential of polyphonic composition.  This Concerto, lasting totally about 15 minutes, is considered to be a peak for both – the composer and Soviet music in the whole.  Piano Concerto # 3 (1983) Concerto # 3 was finished before the 70-th anniversary of the composer and was primarily performed by the author April 10, 1983. It immediately attracted public with brilliant music, show-piece scope and originality of the common concept. Written in a traditional triadic form, Concerto is unique for its tonal and harmonious structure. It reveals new aspects of the composer’s talent and shows his determination to go further.  The opening part charms with romantic enthusiasm, full expression of a cheerful feeling and tonal beauty. Fluidity and bravura of piano passage works define the image of accurately written staring melodies. The progress leads to the brightest climax: this is a peak of musical thinking, an optimistic onset.  The second part is permeated with sad meditation, periodically interrupted by emotional crescendo. Here you can find new aspects of the author’s lyricism. It can be seen in unique subtlety, or even elegance of illustration, and emotional tension of each sound. The second part charms with tonal beauty and flexibility of the form. This is one of those pages that immediately conquer the audience.  Lyrical charm of the second part is suddenly and sharply violated by a stormy music of Finale. Even in Concerto # 2 it was already evident that Khrennikov was a master of contrasts. Concerto # 3 only proves this idea. Finale is monolithic, where staring melodies dynamically dominate. The opening passages are frantic. Continuous motion combines with sound crescendo. The composer’s inspiration comes up to its final conclusion, but … it turns out to be wrong, because a movement of this kind could not lead to such an outcome. There returns a subtle lyrical melody of waltz. The melody sounds several times and smoothly fades out. It seems as if the circularity used in Concerto # 2 is again applied here. Impression of sad meditation displaces the other. And suddenly all disappears, pressed with an opening phrase of Finale, severely sweeping the obstacles resting on the way. Sophisticated Final invokes complex associations.  Concerto captures us with its scope, rich colors and bright show piece. Here we can add deep sensation of life, emotionality and temperament of music – strong and active, rich in contrasting characters and sudden turns in the way of thinking. Among Khrennikiv’s concerto-symphonic compositions Concerto # 3 is one of the most challenging. It is very important for revealing stylistic ambitions of the composer, who had a very active life. He naturally uses acquired experience in the field of expressive techniques; he can emphasize something fresh out of traditional, and treats the century’s innovations originally, finding incentives for creative activity. However, the composer never forgets of prominence and expressiveness of melodious origin of his music.  In general, many traits of these three Piano Concertos are connected with the peculiarities of the author’s pianism, which is very expressive in prominent creation of characters, acquiring almost theatrical concretion. Performing his own compositions, Khrennikov continued the tradition that has always played an important role in our native art. Still at Conservatoire Khrennikov gave a good account of himself as a brilliant pianist. His piano performance has always been emotional and vivid, and sometimes even dramatic. In a word, he is a master of sociable intonation both as a composer as well as a performer. Khrennikov performs as a composer striving to express the internal nature of a composition, while his play is characterized with brilliancy of professional pianism.  Quotations from the books and articles by I.Martynov, O.Levtonova, Y.Kremljov are used in the booklet.