Auckland Philharmonia: Rach 2

French pianist Lise de la Salle joins the APO and conductor Carlos Kalmar for Rachmaninov's sumptuous Second Concerto.

Carlos Kalmar and Lise de la Salle Photo: RNZ, Tim Dodd

KORNGOLD arr Russ: The Sea Hawk

The Sea Hawk was a rollicking nautical film starring Errol Flynn as a privateer foiling evil Spanish plans against glorious mother England. Released in 1940, the Spanish stood in for the Nazis with King Philip II of Spain co-opted as the Hitler of his day.

Following the fashion of the day, the score was to be dense and constant - known as carpet music and Korngold had a crazily fast turnaround to complete the project ­- around 100 minutes of music was written and recorded in a matter of weeks - a miraculous feat (albeit with the assistance of 4 orchestrators and various copyists.)

There are full score recordings but this is an arrangement of nine short sections arranged in 2003 by Patrick Russ (who’s orchestrated films such as Dead Poets Society, Chocolat, George of the Jungle, and Ghostbusters).

RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No 2

In the book Conversations with Igor Stravinsky the composer mused on his compatriot, Rachmaninov: "Some people achieve a kind of immortality just by the totality with which they do or do not possess some quality or characteristic. Rachmaninov’s immortalising totality was his scowl. He was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall scowl".

And indeed Rachmaninov was prone to bouts of depression and lethargy.

After the critical savaging of his first symphony in 1897 he wrote that: "A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch sighing over my ruined life. I had given up in great despair."

It took three years and an alternative method to pull himself from his funk. This involved visits to a hypnotist who had treated an aunt of Rachmaninov and who through a combo of sympathetic discussion and hypnotic suggestion helped the composer turn the corner.

Rachmaninov recalled: "I heard the same hypnotic formulas repeated day after day as I lay sleeping in Dahl's treatment room. 'You will write your concerto... you will work with great ease... The concerto will be of excellent quality...' It was always the same words, without interruption. Even if it seems unbelievable, this therapy really helped me. In the summer I began to compose. The material grew and new musical ideas began to stir in me."

Rachmaninov travelled to the Mediterranean returning a few months later with a swag of new music including sketches for this concerto.

The premiere was given in October of 1901 with the work dedicated to his hypnotist, Nikolai Dahl.

It was a hit, lapped up across the globe. Rachmaninov noted during a tour of United States: "These Americans cannot get enough of it."

SCHUBERT arr de la Salle: An die Musik

Performed as an encore by Lise de la Salle.

SCHUMANN: Symphony No 1, Spring

Early 1841 saw Schumann in the first few months of his marriage to Clara Wieck. He'd had to resort to the courts to overcome her father's resistance to their match, and though it was winter, thoughts of spring were propelling him.

These were crystallised in a verse by the poet Adolf Böttger – and the symphony’s opening theme is a wordless setting of the last stanza of the poem, which translates as: 'Oh turn, Oh turn and change your course — Now in the valley blooms the spring!'

"The symphony has given me so many hours of bliss," Schumann wrote in his diary. "I thank my guardian angel for letting me finish this large work with such ease."

We get the shorthand version of Schumann's speed-writing of his 1^st Symphony from other entries in his diary of 1841:

"January the 23^rd: The 'Spring' Symphony begun.
January 24^th: The Adagio and Scherzo of the symphony completed.
January 25^th: Symphonic fire – sleepless nights – [work] on the last movement.
January 26^th: Hooray! The symphony complete!"

This was in fact the piano sketch for the work, but it was fully completed and premiered by March the 31^st with none other than the musical force of nature Mendelssohn conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Recorded by RNZ Concert in Auckland Town Hall, 4 May 2023
Sound engineer: Adrian Hollay
Producer: Tim Dodd