études-tableaux Op. 39

[Jonathon Burnside]

Thetudes-Tableaux ("study pictures"), Op. 33, is the first of two sets of piano tudes composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff. They were intended to be "picture pieces", essentially "musical evocations of external visual stimuli". But Rachmaninoff did not disclose what inspired each one, stating: "I do not believe in the artist that discloses too much of his images. Let [the listener] paint for themselves what it most suggests."[1] However, he willingly shared sources for a few of these tudes with the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi when Respighi orchestrated them in 1930.

Rachmaninoff composed the Op. 33 tudes-Tableaux at his Ivanovka estate in Tambov, Russia between August and September 1911, the year after completing his second set of preludes, Op. 32. While the Op. 33 tudes-Tableaux share some stylistic points with the preludes, they are actually not very similar. Rachmaninoff concentrates on establishing well-defined moods and developing musical themes in the preludes. There is also an academic facet to the preludes, as he wrote 24 of them, one in each of the 24 major and minor keys.

Rachmaninoff biographer Max Harrison calls the tudes-Tableaux "studies in [musical] composition"; while they explore a variety of themes, they "investigate the transformation of rather specific climates of feeling via piano textures and sonorities. They are thus less predictable than the preludes and compositionally mark an advance" in technique.[2]

Rachmaninoff initially wrote nine pieces for Op. 33 but published only six in 1914. One tude, in A minor, was subsequently revised and used in the Op. 39 set; the other two appeared posthumously and are now usually played with the other six. Performing these eight tudes together could be considered to run against the composer's intent, as the six originally published are unified through "melodic-cellular connections" in much the same way as in Robert Schumann's Symphonic Studies.[3]

In 1929, conductor and music publisher Serge Koussevitzky asked whether Rachmaninoff would select a group of tudes-tableaux for Italian composer Ottorino Respighi to orchestrate. The commissioned orchestrations would be published by Koussevitzky's firm and Koussevitzky would conduct their premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Rachmaninoff agreed and selected five tudes from Op. 33 and Op. 39. Respighi rearranged the order of tudes, but was otherwise faithful to the composer's intent. He gave each tude a distinct title from the programmatic clues Rachmaninoff had given him:

Following on from his formidable complete recording of the Preludes, Nikolai Lugansky now immerses us in two more major cycles by Rachmaninoff, the tudes-tableaux. Like Chopin and Liszt, the Russian composer here transcends every technical difficulty to make room for emotion alone. At once poet and virtuoso, Nikolai Lugansky is unmatched in his ability to do justice to this prodigious musical kaleidoscope.

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