this is a highly programmatic piece written by tchaik at the behest of the russian government during the serbian war against the ottoman empire. a propagandistic and accessible piece, it depicts russians coming to the aid of serbian military forces, premiered in moscow on nov 17, 1876.
wikipedia pretty much has the component themes and such explained, and i did this on a pops concert (complete with demos of the various motifs), so this is kind of a slacker entry...
from the beginning: here is a slavic melody called "Sunce jarko, ne sijas jednako," or "oh bright sun, your light is unequal."
tchaik directs this to be played with a funeral march's tempo and mood. notice the basses' ascending grace notes of doom that lends it that air, much like at least one other funeral march we can think of...
the other, more songful serb melody begins at about 1:10.
here's the battle that the serbs are laboring under at 1:24 - notice the dark brass ascending from underneath, the skittering of the strings.
at 3:10, here come the russians - a chipper little rustic tune. (if you want to see a really amusing conductor antic go just a few seconds before - about 3:00.)
here's god save the tsar at 4:34 (also an awesome little conductor gesture...). hmm, now what other piece might one ever have heard that before?
now they're just entering the battle - back come the warlike strains and a basic reprise of the two slavic melodies.
6:51 - according to my conductor last week, the russians *actually* help the serbs here.
and from there on it's on to VICTORY the end
No comments:
Post a Comment