“A man of a rare charm”: Anton Arensky's life between conservatory and pothouse.
Alina Sorokina looks at the life and works of the under-performed Russian composer (1861-1906), whose works make up the programme for our concert on 9th March.
The artistic life of Anton Stepanovich Arensky was in most aspects prosperous and successful. He was born to a wealthy family in Nizhny Novgorod, and after his parents discovered his latent musical talent the family moved to Saint Petersburg, where he studied counterpoint, harmony, composition and instrumentation with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
While still a student, Arensky showed himself to be an exceptionally gifted, prominent, and quick writer. His profound music erudition, understanding of music theory, form and counterpoint, and his agility in writing music were witnessed in the memoirs of many of Arensky's contemporaries.
It’s no surprise that right after his graduation in 1882, the twenty-one-year-old talent was invited to be a teacher of theoretical disciplines at the Moscow Conservatory, where he soon became a professor — a curious parallel to Tchaikovsky's early career, when, sixteen years previously, as a recent alumnus of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovsky had been invited to teach at the newly opened conservatory in Moscow by its founder, Nikolay Rubinstein.
At his graduation exam in harmony Tchaikovsky had awarded Arensky the highest mark, but the two composers only met later, in Moscow in 1883. From that moment up until his death, Tchaikovsky remained a mentor and a great supporter of his younger colleague. He helped Arensky with advice regarding composition, promoted his music in concert programmes and recommended Arensky’s opuses to his own publishers.
Arensky’s twelve years of professorship at the Moscow Conservatory were productive and left a mark in history of that renowned musical institution. Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Glière, Grechaninov and Medtner, along with celebrated pianists Goldenweiser and Igumnov, were among the students who attended Arensky’s classes. The students adored their young professor – some of them were older than Arensky – and appreciated his humour, vivacity and nontrivial teaching approach. He gave advice not from a dry scholastic position but from an artistic point of view, which gained him the genuine love and respect of students.
One of his contemporaries remembered that “there was so much intelligence and humor in him! He was not distinguished by beauty: stooped, tousled hair, but his eyes burned like coals, and he spoke so captivatingly, so passionately that his rumpled face became appealing.”
Reinhold Glière remembered Arensky as "not an ordinary teacher who must ... prepare [his students] for the exam, but a true artist, an exceptionally gifted composer, deeply appreciated and loved not only by the public, but also by the best musicians of that time."
It was Arensky for whom young Sergey Rachmaninov dedicated his op. 3 “Morceaux de fantaisie“ which includes the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor.
Arensky was also known as the author of the first methodological books on harmony and form in Russia, including the "Collection of 1000 tasks for the practical study of harmony", which has not lost its educational relevance even today.
From 1888, besides his work at the Conservatory, Arensky held the position of director of the Russian Choral Society in Moscow, an organisation which existed between 1878 and 1915. The Society was an important milestone for the development of Russian choral culture, and Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rubinstein, and Taneyev were among its patrons.
Classes at the conservatory took too much time and energy, leaving Arensky too little liberty for composition and concert activities.
In 1895 Arensky made his decision to leave Moscow for Saint Petersburg where he accepted a very prestigious and well paid position as the director of the Imperial Chapel, the very first professional music education institution in Russia — first established in Moscow in 1479 and moved by Peter the Great to the new capital in 1703.
Perhaps this life change happened not without Tchaikovsky’s encouragement, who wrote to Arensky in 1891: “You cannot imagine, dear Anton Stepanovich, how I suffer thinking that people like you, Rimsky-Korsakov, Lyadov should torment themselves with teaching. … God knows, maybe, gradually, little by little you will achieve that you could live by only composition. I serve as proof that it is possible.”
In 1901 Arensky left the post at the Imperial Chapel and, thanks to the sizable pension he was receiving, was able to dedicate the rest of his life entirely to composition and his concert activities as a pianist and conductor.
The outwardly prosperous life of Anton Arensky was always darkened with two demons which haunted him permanently: debauchery and wine. Gossip about Arensky’s disorganization and idleness caused by his weakness for alcohol had always circulated in the conservatory environment.
The director of the Moscow Conservatory at that time, Vasiliy Safonov, spread a saying — not distinguished by particular sophistication — on Arensky’s notoriety, the meaning of which came down to the idea that "Arensky’s Muse doesn't leave the Rhine cellars".
That certainly poured oil on the flame of the already strained relationship between the director and professor and increased Arensky’s resolve to leave the Conservatory.
Arensky's imbalance and morbid nervousness, well known to his students, sometimes led to open conflicts, as with Alexander Scriabin, who as a result had to graduate from the Conservatory only as a pianist, without a composer diploma.
Attempts to quit the saturnalian life led Arensky to temporary religious lunacy and a mental breakdown in May 1887. To the happiness of his friends, Tchaikovsky and Taneyev, his mental health fully recovered after spending a few months at a hospital.
Despite all that, his lifestyle did not change for the future.
With certain empathy Tchaikovsky wrote to Arensky in 1891: “You say that you have grown tired of Moscow tavern life. ... For the fact that you indulge in tavern life in excess, you should not blame Moscow, but only yourself. It’s not for me to give you precepts, as for myself, during my twelve-year permanent stay in Moscow I, as one could say, did not leave the tavern. But I must give myself the defence that, in spite of that, I still did not miss any work.”
But what artistic soul could resist the dashing carefree party life in the Moscow of that time? A bustling city nightlife with famous restaurants, troikas, and "gypsies in the Georgian [district], where the old witch, who still remembers Apukhtin, fries eggs at five o'clock in the morning, narrow-eyed Stesha sings songs in a languid voice, and dark-skinned Natasha embraces the guest with one hand and fumbles in his pocket with another." (A quote from Tatiana Shchepkina-Kupernik memoires “The days of my life”.)
Arensky’s ill fame never prevented Tchaikovsky from supporting him and believing in his success. A year later he was writing to Eduard Nápravník, the principal conductor of Mariinsky Theatre, regarding a future production of Arensky’s opera: “On occasion, my dear, put in a word for Arensky. He should be encouraged; he is liable to lose heart and die from drunkenness and all kinds of disgrace. Meanwhile, his is a real great talent.”
Another evidence of the composer's weaknesses can be found in Rimsky-Korsakov’s memoirs, written soon after Arensky’s death: “... According to all witnesses, he spent his life dissolutely, plagued by drunkenness and gambling, yet his compositional activity was quite prolific.”
Addiction did not lead Arensky directly to his death, as had happened with Mussorgsky, but it did definitely bring him closer to the end. Arensky died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-four at a sanatorium in a Saint Petersburg suburb in February 1906.
Despite a stirring life and an early death, Arensky’s legacy includes about seventy opuses and is distinguished by diversity of genre. It includes three operas, two symphonies (along with other works for orchestra), three cantatas, a great deal of chamber music (including the famous Piano Trio in D minor), a violin concerto and piano concerto, about sixty songs and a generous amount of piano music, including five suites for two pianos.
Arensky’s cosmopolitan style was shaped between Saint Petersburg and Moscow. One one hand he had the influence of Rimsky-Korsakov and the Mighty Handful, and on the other, Tchaikovsky and the Moscow school.
During his lifetime, Arensky and his music were highly appreciated by both audience and musicians. His works were performed by the most celebrated artists of that time: Feodor Chaliapin, Vera Komissarzhevskaya; his operas were staged at the main theatres, and the ballet “Egyptian nights” (written after Théophile Gautier’s novel, not Pushkin’s prose tale) was brought by Diaghilev to Paris as a part of his famous “Russian seasons”.
Leo Tolstoy admired the clarity and sincerity of Arensky’s music and genuinely considered him to be one of the best composers of the time. His piano pieces and Suites for two pianos, especially loved by Leo Nikolayevich, were often heard in the salon at the Yasnaya Polyana, performed by the close friends of the Tolstoy family, Alexander Goldenweiser and Sergey Taneyev.
But how could it happen that a composer treated so kindly by contemporaries during his lifetime was forgotten so soon after his death? At least two reasons can be found…
The new 20th century brought to Russia large-scale dramatic shifts that affected the state of living itself, as well as musical life. Two revolutions happened in a short span of time, and, alongside everyday perturbations, brought the novelty of Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky. No surprise that in the whirlwind of a new sounding world, the gracefully sincere music of Arensky began to sound antiquated.
As a further consequence of these historical turmoils, his exquisitely musical language couldn’t satisfy the paradigm of social realism of the Soviet era. Tragically, Arensky and his name was not only largely neglected but also tagged with poor epithets as “parlour composer”, “impersonally beautiful”, “lacking originality”, “epigonic”, “music of not very deep emotional and intellectual content”. This whole palette of clichés are unfortunately still in use in modern reviews of Arensky’s music.
How different this labelling of musical “emptiness” and “impersonality” is from Goldenweiser's opinion that Arensky “didn’t compose a single note without his good soul shining through it, and all his works reflect his attractive personality.” Or from what Tchaikovsky wrote to Taneyev back in 1891: “... Arensky is amazingly clever in music; he ponders all the details so subtly and rightly! This is a very interesting musical personality!”
Fortunately, the turn of the XX and XXI centuries has brought a surge of interest in Arensky’s music which still carries on. His orchestral and chamber opuses, piano music, and songs are now heard more and more often in concert programmes in Russia and abroad. Furthermore, new editions of Arensky music are being published and, in the present day, most of Arensky’s musical output has been recorded.
Arensky had to share the fate of many other composers of that extraordinarily fruitful period of emergence for composers of the Russian school in the XIX century: the destiny of composers whose fame and popularity got lost in the shadows of two giants of Russian music, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.
But would the latter’s Suites for two pianos have been written without those of Arensky?
A few words about the Concert
In anticipation of the 160th anniversary of Anton Arensky’s birth, we have the pleasure of presenting a handful of Arensky songs and duets alongside two Tchaikovsky works. The featured songs range from Arensky’s early opuses to his latest.
“The Lily of the Valley”, a song for voice, cello and piano setting a poem by Tchaikovsky, is one of the highlights of the concert.
People close to Tchaikovsky knew that he had, in his own words, “some kind of mad adoration” for lilies of the valley, a mere sight of which was “already enough to inspire love for life”. He wrote from Florence to his brother Modest in 1878: “All day and all this morning I spent my time over poetry and the result is a piece, which I attach to this letter. I am terribly proud of this poem. For the first time in my life, I’ve managed to write really good poetry, which is moreover deeply heartfelt.”
Arensky uses only three middle verses of Tchaikovsky’s poem, the full text of which is below. It is remarkable that Tchaikovsky had never set his lyrics to music himself.
“Quietly flew the Soul up to Heaven” is a poem written by count Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy in 1858. The verse depicts a scene in which a soul begs God to let it come back to the Earth, an image that strongly resembles Catherine's dream from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Who knows if Tolstoy had drawn inspiration for his poem from that novel by the British writer, first published in 1847?
That powerful image attracted many Russian composers at that time and later on. Besides Arensky, who wrote his song in 1903, this poem was set to music by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Cui.
The Сhristian theme of love and sacrifice continues with “The Legend” by Tchaikovsky. The fifth song from op. 54, “Sixteen Songs for Children”, is a setting of Alexander Pleshcheev’s translation of American poet Richard Henry Stoddard’s “Roses and Thorns”, the original of which is given below. The theme was arranged as a piece for chorus by Tchaikovsky and gained international success when it was performed at the Carnegie Hall under the baton of the composer himself in 1891. In 1913 an English translation was made by Geoffrey Dearmer and published in The English Carol Book as "When Jesus Christ was yet a child".
Anton Arensky used Tchaikovsky’s theme twice. It first served as a theme in the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 2 op.35; later the same year (1894) he developed the melody of the chorale into the Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky for string orchestra, op.35a.
The complete set of five songs on the lyrics by Tatiana Shchepkina-Kupernik (1874 – 1952) will be performed in the concert. A celebrated playwright, translator of Rostand and Shakespeare, and a woman of remarkable individuality, she was a close friend to the Chekhov family and the heroine of the bohemian life of both Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
In certain ways her life is reminiscent of that of Arensky, having been a celebrity during her long life and posthumously forgotten. It was something she was very aware of: “It will happen many years later - maybe in the 21st century, maybe in the 22nd - about year 2025, some critic, most likely a woman ... may want to resurrect a few forgotten shadows and will begin studying my extant writings.” — from Donald Rayfield’s Tatiana L'vovna Shchepkina-Kupernik. Selected Poems and Narrative Poems, Moscow, 2008.
Despite the scandalous reputation of a sapphic poetess, her lighthearted yet deep lyrics, with slightly frumpish rhymes, appear to be well-tempered and almost innocent in comparison with the expressly provocative style of some of the other female poets of the fin de siècle. The merger of words by Shchepkina-Kupernik and music by Arensky is an example of a perfect match between two confident artists, who never intended to sacrifice their genuine personality in order to obtain the reputation of being an ultramodern artist.
The fourth song of the cycle, “The Roof of Heaven is Dazzling Blue” is in fact a revised version of a poem she wrote as a poetic “postcard” that she sent to Chekhov from Naples in May 1894.
Two tranquil nocturnal duets for soprano and mezzo by Arensky, “Last night” and “All is quiet in the Bewitching Night”, bookend the concert. Amidst a background of apparent serenity, a sensitive ear will feel a subtle breakdown deep in its harmonic and agogic tissue. It gives us an opportunity to observe and admire the detailed “subtlety and rightness” of Arensky’s hand, and which we, as performers and audience, have yet to discover in its entirety.
The Lilies of the Valley
P. Tchaikovsky
In the end of spring, when I’m picking for the last time
My favorite flowers, – my breast is squeezed in anguish,
And I prayerfully appeal to the future:
I want to look at lilies of the valley once again.
Here they have faded. Summer has flown as an arrow,
The days became shorter, the feathered choir fell silent,
The stingy sun gives us less of warmth and light,
And the forest has already spread its deciduous carpet.
Later, when the time of the severe winter comes
And the forests will dress with a snow veil,
I wander gloomily and, with a new yearning, I wait
That sky will gleam with the sun of spring.
Neither the book nor the conversation pleases me,
Neither the fast run of the sleigh, nor the glitter of the noisy ball,
Nor Patti*, nor theater, nor subtleties of a dinner,
Nor quiet crackling of logs in a fireplace.
I'm waiting for spring. And here the sorceress appeared,
The forest has thrown off its shroud and is preparing the shade for us,
And the rivers flowed, and the grove resounded,
And finally the long-desired day has come!
Haste to the forest! .. I run the familiar path:
Have desires come true, dreams come real? ..
Here he is! Leaning to the ground, with trembling hand
I pluck the marvelous gift of the sorceress-spring.
Ah, lily of the valley, why do you please eyes so!
There are other flowers, more luxurious and lush,
Of brighter colors and with design more refined,
But they don’t have your mysterious beauty.
What is the secret of your charms? What are you prophesying to the soul?
What are you beckoning me and rejoicing my heart with?
Or do you revive the phantom of the past happiness?
Or do you promise me the upcoming felicity?
I don’t know. But your fragrance
Caresses and beckons me as a wine,
Like music it makes me breathless
And, like an ardor of love, makes me blushing.
And I am happy while you are blooming, modest lily of the valley,
A trace of winter days boredom has long passed,
And there are no oppressive thoughts, and in languid bliss my heart
Welcomes together with you the oblivion of evil and troubles.
But you have faded. Again a row of monotonous
Days will flow quietly and stronger than before
I will languish with obsessive longing,
An agonizing longing for the happiness of May days.
And then someday spring will wake up again
And will raise the living world from the shackles.
But the hour will strike. I will not be among the living,
I will meet, like everyone else, my fatal turn.
What will be there? .. Where, at the hour of feathered death,
My spirit, heeding the command, will soar soundlessly?
No answer! Be quiet, my restless mind,
You can't figure out what eternity gives us.
But, like all in nature, we, drawn by the thirst to live,
We call you and wait for you, beautiful spring!
The joys of the earth are so close to us, so familiar, -
The gaping mouth of the grave is so dark!
* Adelina Patti (1843 – 1919) – a world famous Italian opera singer, who successfully toured in Russia between 1869 and 1877.
Roses and Thorns
Richard Henry Stoddard
The young child Jesus had a garden,
Full of roses, rare and red:
And thrice a day he watered them,
To make a garland for his head.
When they were full-blown in the garden,
He called the Jewish children there,
And each did pluck himself a rose,
Until they stripped the garden bare.
"And now how will you make your garland?
For not a rose your path adorns."
"But you forget," he answered them,
"That you have left me still the thorns."
They took the thorns, and made a garland,
And placed it on his shining head;
And where the roses should have shone
Were little drops of blood instead!
About the Author
Alina Sorokina trained at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow and at the Opera Course of Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where she was generously supported by Ms. Nicola Thorp of The Leverhulme Trust. Alina has worked as a repetiteur and coach for Cendrillon, Mayakovsky begins (Maimonides State Classical Academy, Moscow); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Aminta e Fillide, Genizah, La Fedeltà Premiata, The Angel Esmeralda, La bella dormente nel bosco, Dido and Aeneas (Guildhall School of Music and Drama). During her studies at the Guildhall Alina also served as a Russian language coach and now runs a “Russian phonetics for beginners” course. Future plans include The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga, The Maid of Pskov (Grange Park opera), Eugene Onegin (West Green Park Opera).