Musical PrayersTchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto
Intro
Music calms us, inspires us, invigorates us, guides us. We play music when we’re bored or lonely. It keeps us company. We play music to drown out unpleasant realities. We share it with others in the hope that they hear what we hear in it; feel what we feel.
We use the word “move” to describe what music does to us. “I was moved” by this or that piece of music. It triggers emotions and associations. Sometimes those associations ruin the music. We can no longer enjoy certain songs because the lover with whom we shared them is no longer with us.
I’ve never had that problem, I’m pleased to say. Because music has always meant more to me than any lover. Sadly, however, most people I run across don’t hear what I hear or feel what I feel in music.
Some music more than moves me. It grabs me in its jaws and flails me about. It bites into my soul and drags me into hell for a heavenly cause. Its fangs inject me with heavy doses of yearning. And gratitude.
Tears flow when I’m gripped like this by beauty. I reach out involuntarily, on my knees, for something greater than myself. Something infinite. Something eternal.
I call these experiences musical prayers.
My First Time
The first of these divine encounters involved the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto. Specifically, the classic Van Cliburn recording from the late 50s.
I was 13. We (meaning, my mother and I) had just moved to Southern California. And those first few months were a nightmare for me. Largely because of the severe culture shock of plucking a 13-year-old religious freak out of his Episcopal school in Newport News, Virginia, and dropping him into the secular California school system of the mid-1970s.
My first day at Ball Junior High (in Anaheim), standing in line to register for one of my 8th-grade classes, I caught a few older women (14-year-olds) in front of me discussing abortions and mind-altering chemicals. I was not intellectually or emotionally equipped to handle such topics. Not by a long shot. Not to mention, these girls were slim, tanned, and showing a lotta skin. You know how a cat reacts to the sight of birds? That was me with these girls.
And I didn’t have any social skills, to speak of. I knew no one except my mother. And let’s just say for now that my mother always sought more to be comforted than to comfort. The only thing I looked forward to every day for many days was the hour or so in the late afternoons before my mother got home from work, during which it was just me and that vinyl recording.
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For this article, I’ll be referencing a YouTube video of a performance in Moscow in 1958. The same people are in the studio recording.
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Odd Music
The Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto [henceforth T1PC] is probably the most lauded of all concertos. And yet it is an odd concerto; which begs the question, What is an ordinary concerto? Nobody wants their music ordinary, do they? Well, maybe ordinary people do.
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MUSICAL GLOSSARY
sonata-allegro, a musical form that consists basically of an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation and that is used especially for the first movement of a sonata, a symphony, or a concerto
minuet, a slow, graceful dance in ³/₄ time that was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries
scherzo, a sprightly humorous instrumental musical composition or movement commonly in quick triple time
rondo, a type of music for instruments in which the main tune at the beginning is repeated after each of the other tunes that are used
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I was raised by people whose taste in music, I would say, was ordinary. Good music to them was Lawrence Welk; which is to say, the blandest, whitest big band music there ever was. And to musicians, whiteness is a liability. Musical whiteness means: devoid of passion and spontaneity. Cerebral. Like a machine. A machine can play all the notes better and faster than a human. But that doesn’t make it music. Music is a human expression, prone to mistakes and other surprises.
People who like Lawrence Welk don’t like surprises. I still yawn today at the thought of having to suffer through Lawrence Welk in the 1960s before Lassie or Disney or something else came on that was worthy of my time. My favorite was The Ed Sullivan Show, with its parade of pop stars, including rock-n-roll bands that my grandparents suffered through.
I remember asking my grandfather, “Daddy, do you like The Beatles?” His response was: “I like some of their music.” My grandmother added: “The slower songs.” I sat on my grandfather’s lap one night watching Peggy Lee croon the George Harrison song, “Something.” I informed him that it was a Beatles song. And he declared — as he did from time to time, on his perch far, far away from current trends — “Now THAT’S music!”
Like a Dream
But what’s odd about the T1PC? It’s odd, mostly, in its form. It opens with a gorgeous, grandiose melody that feels like a primary theme. But it isn’t. It’s merely an introduction; because we never hear that melody again.
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In the fall of 1975, the T1PC was like a dream. Or maybe even a visionquest — a way for me to escape my discontent and glimpse a flash of my calling.
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This opening melody ends (more or less) at the 3:25 mark of the video, and we get almost a minute of transitional material that could put a worm to sleep. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; worms gotta sleep too, I suppose.
But for me, in the fall of 1975, the T1PC was like a dream. Or maybe even a visionquest; a way for me to escape my discontent and glimpse a flash of my calling.
You know how, in dreams, one scene dissolves into another; or even jump-cuts into another? One way in which the T1PC is odd is that the transitions lull you into a stupor before something dramatic happens. And the drama isn’t always sudden. It doesn’t always go “boo,” like a scary movie. Sometimes it builds to a cataclysm. And sometimes the climb is more rewarding than the mountaintop.
Nevertheless, the next scene — that is, the actual primary theme of the 1st movement — starts at the 4:20 mark. This agitated Ukrainian folk tune then dissolves into the secondary theme at the 6:00 mark.
What’s the opposite of agitated? Calm, perhaps.
Both themes sound to me like cries for help. The primary theme cries out in anger; the secondary theme, in sadness — two emotions which are sides A and B of the same record, as far as I’m concerned. They both stem from grief. Angry grief is aimed up and out (at the universe); sad grief is aimed down and in (at the self).
Odd Child
Yearning is another word that comes to mind, with the secondary theme (again, at the 6:00 mark). It seems to me that questions are asked by the phrases of this plaintive melody; first by the orchestra, and then by the piano. And for me in those days, the big question was, Why? Why am I here?
Sounds like a lot for a 13-year-old to deal with, right? But bear in mind that I was not an ordinary 13-year-old. I was a 13-year-old who spoke in tongues and cast out demons. Heaven and hell were daily destinations. I went to hell every time I went to school, and every time I came home to my violent mother. I went to heaven every time I played the piano, or sang in the church choir, or prayed and meditated while listening to Handel, or Mahler, or Tchaikovsky.
I was an odd kid, by everyone’s measure. And if it weren’t for classical music, no doubt I’d have acted out in ways that got me locked up or put down. Pop music in the 70s was no comfort, what little I heard. I had a hipster cousin who tried to turn-me-on to Kraftwerk and Brian Eno. Inane was the word I used to describe my impressions of what are now rock classics. Hip-Cuz got mad and told me to stick to Haydn. I told him that he must’ve been Haydn that reference up his ass, because I cared little for any music before and after nineteenth-century chromaticism.
I’ve since changed my mind about Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, AND Haydn. But at the time, my religious indoctrination would not allow my soul to open up to any current music that wasn’t produced by a church or a Christian record label. I couldn’t even listen to current classical music, because of the demons. And by “the demons”, I mean anything that weirded out my mother. She fretted constantly about demons in books, records, and movies; among other objects of affection. Haydn was fine with her, even though it bored me. But any classical music from Stravinsky forward was just plain ole too weird for my mother, and was thus dismissed as demonic.
The T1PC was the best (and only) friend that particular (peculiar) 13-year-old boy had. And I hate to say that it spoke to me, because that draws a comparison to The Beatles and Charles Manson. But rather than telling me to go out and kill people, the T1PC told me to write beautiful music. Good thing I didn’t have access to the White Album!
The Gathering Storm
There is a brief respite within the secondary theme, at the 6:45 mark — a major-key melody that serves as a bridge. Then the minor-key yearning returns — building to a bang that ends with a whimper — and brings the exposition to a close around 8:50.
An ordinary sonata-allegro repeats the exposition. But would you want to go through all those fevered emotions again, in the same way? I think not! One good cry is enough. And now we want to know what else he’s got. After all, grief alone does not an artist make.
Oddly, the development begins (at 8:54) with the same sweet melody from the middle of the secondary theme. But coming as it does now, out of the blue, right after all that weeping and gnashing of teeth, it feels once again like a dream; this time, one that surprises us with comfort after a fright, and renders us defenseless for the coming storm.
And what an awesome storm! It brews gradually (beginning at 9:43) from a rumble into a deluge; an extended crescendo that does a whole lot more than turn up the volume. The dissonances and density of orchestration pile up, phrase after phrase, building tension and its by-product, suspense.
Drama King
Tchaikovsky was a master of these extended build-ups. You hear them throughout his ballets and symphonies. This is what I meant earlier when I mentioned that the journey is more meaningful than the destination. The life lived is more fulfilling than its completion. In fact, sometimes the completion seems arbitrary; or worse, forced. At least that’s how life in Tchaikovsky’s music plays out.
This time, however, there is a big surprise waiting for us at the summit — the piano equivalent of a heavy metal power riff (at the 10:35 mark)! It’s more of an explosion, actually; one that — from a single instrument — matches the ruckus of the entire orchestra. And it’s one of the reasons I became a piano player. A piano is like an orchestra, in terms of its pitch and dynamic range. (Not to mention, the piano is a whole lot more agreeable: it doesn’t get fussy about your downbeat; and it doesn’t grumble when you wanna play something again.)
Show Off!
The piano explodes. The smoke clears. And we get a mini-cadenza (at 10:48), based on the secondary theme. Most concertos have one cadenza. This one has two. Or rather, one and two halves. One of the halves occurs back at the beginning, in the middle of that grandiose introductory theme (at 1:15); and the other half happens here.
I’ve always thought any cadenza an odd event. Essentially, everybody takes a nap while the soloist shows off. But what a lovely moment this is! More questions; this time, whispered. Why? Why?
And then something extra-ordinary happens at 11:14 — a new melody! Based on something we’ve heard before? Perhaps. But maybe not. Maybe it just had to be there. A series of minor-key sobs; building. Building, building. Always building, with this Tchaikovsky guy! There’s always a storm brewing; if not now, then nearby.
Why so emotional all the time? I’ll tell ya why. Because when it comes to music, go hard or go home! Why bother to get an audience together if you’re not gonna take off all your clothes?
This sobbing motif starts with the piano. And then the orchestra comes back in. The key changes suddenly (at 11:42), and — Voilà! — we’re now sobbing in a major key. And not only that, we’re not alone anymore. The orchestra weeps with us.
Coda
More development — the secondary theme in the piano, counterpointed by the primary theme in the orchestra. And then (at 12:59), finally, we’re into the recap.
If you’re not a classical musician, or if you haven’t done your homework, recap is fancy showbiz talk for “recapitulation”. We’re treated, once again, to the primary theme, the secondary theme; and then, at the 15:33 mark, we get the real cadenza, right where it’s supposed to be, just prior to the coda.
The coda (starting at 18:35) consists mainly of the brighter sounding bridge material from the secondary theme; though there is a brief minor-key skirmish (at 19:14) right before the first movement closes in a major key.
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This is the first installment of a new series called “Musical Prayers”. Stay tuned (subscribe below) for the next installment: Movements Two and Three of the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto.
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You should include a glossary of musical terms for this piece.
Yes, I should.