Ravinia 2026 Issue 5

Pressure to meet his financial obligations reached a desperate level: “It is OBLIGATORY that I complete 30 compositions and settle ac- counts with Belaieff before I go abroad,” Scriabin wrote to Zinaida Monighetti in late August 1903. Yet, desperation did not stifle his imagination; it ignited a burst of creativity. In 1903 alone, he produced 32 solo-piano compositions: Sonata No. 4, 16 preludes in four opus numbers, eight études, three untitled “poems,” the Poème tragique , the Poème satanique , and two mazur- kas. Scriabin also made significant progress on the Symphony No. 3 (“The Divine Poem”) and invested extensive time on an unnamed and eventually abandoned opera built around a phi- losopher-musician-poet character. Scriabin set- tled his debt with Belaieff before settling in Swit- zerland. Tragically, the publisher died months later, on January 4, 1904. Scriabin composed the Eight Etudes, op. 42, almost a decade after his Twelve Etudes, op. 8 (1894). These later studies display greater nu- ance and more inward expression than the spirited virtuosity of the earlier collection, as well as the chromatic and tonal expansion of his middle-period music. Etude No. 4 unfolds as a lyrical meditation in the style of a romance. By contrast, No. 5 assumes a darker, more volatile demeanor, driven by harmonic restlessness and brooding intensity. PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–1893) Méditation , op. 72, no. 5 A stream of personal and professional nostalgia coursed through Tchaikovsky’s last keyboard collection—the 18 Piano Pieces, op. 72. Immor- talized in these diverse character sketches were piano virtuosi, former colleagues at the Mos- cow Conservatory, students from throughout his teaching career, and beloved female relatives of his close friends. Personal as these renderings might have been, Tchaikovsky confessed little enthusiasm for the project, despite the impres- sive fact that he finished at least one piece per Alexander Scriabin day between April 19 and May 3, 1893. “These offspring,” the composer intimated to his neph- ew Bob Davydov, “are terribly premature and imperfect: I have no great desire to create them, and I do so for the money. I endeavor only to have them turn out not too badly.” The fifth piece in the collection, Méditation , por- trays his variable and occasionally tumultuous relationship with Vasily Safonov, director of the Moscow Conservatory. Although Tchaikovsky supported Safonov’s appointment as direc- tor, the two waged an open power struggle at the Russian Musical Society that resulted in Tchaikovsky’s resignation as conductor. Safon- ov, an early proponent of batonless conduct- ing, appeared frequently in the United States in the early 20th century. Additionally, he served three years (1906–9) as principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society Orchestra while functioning as director of the National Conservatory of Music. SERGE RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943) Moment musical in E minor, op. 16, no. 4 The overwhelming exertion of composing his first symphony left Rachmaninoff physically and emotionally depleted. However, this rising star of Russian music could not relax while waiting for the premiere. Dire financial necessity forced him to churn out a series of shorter works in late 1896. Rachmaninoff explained to Arkadi Kerzin a decade later: “The fact that so soon after com- pleting the symphony I wrote 20 short pieces can be explained by my need to pay a rather large sum of money that was stolen from me on a train, money that did not belong to me.” These two dozen (not 20) miniatures included the 12 Songs, op. 14; Six Children’s Choruses, op. 15; and Six Moments musicaux , op. 16, for solo piano. Little could Rachmaninoff have imagined that these trifles would become his last creative products for nearly three years. This dark peri- od stemmed from the devastating failure of his symphony, which local Moscow critics branded as “modernist trash” and likened to “a program- matic symphony on the Seven Plagues of Egypt” The Six Moments musicaux reveal Rachmani- noff ’s efforts to remedy weaknesses in his com- positional technique, writing with a polished thematic language and employing more imagi- native and coherent formal procedures. Despite these major advancements, the composer rarely programmed any of the “musical moments” on his own public piano recitals. Rachmaninoff ordered the Six Moments mu- sicaux according to alternating slow and fast movements. Moment musical No. 4 in E minor is both the fastest ( presto ) and most overtly Chopinesque of the set. Its turbulent, virtuosic left-hand figuration, soaring treble melody, and overall dramatic shape recall the Polish com- poser’s powerful Étude in C minor, op. 10, no. 12 (“Revolutionary”). Étude-tableau in G minor, op. 33, no. 8 Rachmaninoff completed two sets of Études-tab- leaux (Picturesque Studies), opp. 33 and 39, six years apart at the Ivanovka estate, but under thoroughly different circumstances. The first group of eight Études-tableaux , op. 33, followed directly on the heels of the 13 Preludes, op. 32, whose composition in 1910 completely exhaust- ed Rachmaninoff. “Really, I have never had so strenuous, unrestful, and fatiguing summer. Moreover, from tiredness (perhaps old age) I have become inexcusably forgetful … and every evening when I go to bed, I am horrified when I remember how many things I have forgotten to do that day” Nonetheless, Rachmaninoff tapped a reserve of energy to finish the Études-tableaux , op. 33, in a rapid burst of composition in 1911. He in- troduced this music on a concert tour of En- gland later in the year. Each piano miniature represents a different musical character, por- trayed in a highly compact musical setting. Though Rachmaninoff originally created nine études-tableaux , A. Gutheil published only six as the op. 33 set in 1914. The composer reas- signed a study in A major to op. 39, where it became the sixth Étude-tableau . The remaining two pieces were incorporated into op. 33 in the posthumous Muzgiz edition (1946), where they appeared as nos. 4 and 5. The Étude-tableau in G minor—eighth of the nine originals—is a close spiritual cousin of Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in the same key. In fact, Rachmaninoff quoted a bravura scalar passage by the Polish pianist-composer near the end of his own composition. In Rachmaninoff ’s Rec- ollections Told to Oskar von Risemann (1934), the composer intimated a connection to Ar- nold Böklin’s painting, mistakenly identified as Serge Rachmaninoff RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 24 – SEPTEMBER 6 , 2026 84