Rubinstein 4 reissue gets a drubbing...

[eschiss1]

haven't heard more than one of them (and then only once awhile ago, which is as well as not hearing at piece at all for most works, for me- and I have a reasonably good musical memory and still say so...), but there have been at least three recordings, not two - unless the Golovschin, on Russian Disc, is one of the two being discussed and I just haven't noticed the fact. And that's just CD recordings; there may have been LPs for all I know. (His 3rd symphony, on the other hand, has to my knowledge only received CD recordings, because the orch. parts had been lost and had to be created anew for the premiere recording, making an LP recording at least unlikely...)
___

Oh. WHOOPS. Ok, I now see with some embarrassment that the Delos _is_ the 1993 Russian Disc recording... I thought Delos had reached into their own archives for a recording of their own.  I seem to remember this Golovschin recording being panned the first time out, nineteen years ago, in Fanfare magazine (not that the reviewer - was it David Johnson? Maybe John Wiser?... don't recall. ... was too pleased with either recording then, or the piece either, it's true.)

[Peter1953]

I don't like the way Rubinstein's 4th is being discussed. I'm certainly not amused.

Peter, please don't take offence. I'm sure that none of us want to upset you but surely one is allowed to think less of a work than does another member - and say so?

Of course, but that's not what irritated me a bit. Rubinstein deserves more respect than being used as background muzak in a supermarket. No hard feelings, for me this discussion is closed.

[Alan Howe]

The association of Rubinstein 4 with supermarket muzak is no doubt inappropriate. For one thing, the symphony is definitely not mere background music - just the opposite, in fact, because it aspires to be a major symphonic statement. The problem is that Rubinstein just doesn't do major symphonic statements. It wasn't his genre.
I'm with Mark here. It doesn't aid the cause of unsung music not to be critical where this is appropriate. People will not take us seriously if we are not able to put aside our subjective likes and dislikes in order to come to a more objective assessment of a piece of music. Of course, where this approach can offend is when one's own particular favourite candidate for elevation to sung status is being criticised. Thus, for example, I personally find it especially difficult when Draeseke's music is being taken apart - although, in his case, I at least have a whole website full of scholarly material to refer to.
To return to Rubinstein 4, however, I have never read a laudatory assessment of the music. So all I have is my own ears and my (no doubt limited) musical experience. And both of those tell me that, for all its incidental beauties, it fails in what it sets out to be - a major symphonic statement. And I firmly believe it would be wrong not to say so.
No offence meant, of course...

[eschiss1]

Though if one believes Bradford Robinson (in his preface to the MPH version of the work- these are not always laudatory, btw; that for Wetz sym. 1 is practically a hatchet-job...) Tchaikovsky rather liked the work. (If so, evidence for that, at least, may be in his diary and letters an older edition (1906, Newmarch/Modest Tchaikovsky) - not the newer one with its rather controversial thesis -of which has been Google-scanned... hrm.)

[Alan Howe]

Actually, in partial contradiction of what I wrote earlier, I believe the late Dr Alan Krueck thought highly of Rubinstein's 4th - I have it in an email somewhere.

[Alan Howe]

...indeed, Dr Krueck wrote to me back in March 2005:
<<I am...mystified that the Dramatic or Russian symphonies never achieved repertoire status.>>
So there we have it: a respected musicologist who was convinced of the worth of Rubinstein's 4th (and 5th).
I must clearly try again...

...meanwhile here's a fair review of the CD which prompted this thread:
http://audaud.com/2012/10/anton-rubinstein-symphony-no-4-in-d-minor-dramatic-state-sym-orch-of-russia-igor-golovchin-delos/

[TerraEpon]

Hmmm, well I liked the piece enough to DL the Marco Polo recording a few years ago. Haven't listened to it in long enough to remember anything though...

Though I imagine based on track record it's even worse than the recording being discussed, so...

[Alan Howe]

The Naxos is better played: at least the orchestra plays in tune!

[saxtromba]

There are several problems with the Golovchin recording, of which the most important is that the second and fourth movements are incomplete (and the solo string lines which add such a weird sound to the scherzo are performed by the entire sections).  On the other hand, it's worth listening to for the third movement, which is a full two-thirds longer than the recording by Stankowsky, and much richer (it makes very clear why Mahler was a fan of Rubinstein's music).

As to the status of the symphony: it's perhaps worth noting that George P. Upton, among the most widely read commentators on music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, regarded it very highly indeed; in his Standard Symphonies, first published in 1888 and reprinted many times thereafter, he described it as "the greatest of Rubinstein's works of this kind." He was impressed by Rubinstein's use of the orchestra, asserting that "in technical skill, boldness of treatment, and largeness of conception [the symphony] is a masterpiece of musical art."  In describing each movement, he continued to find things to praise, considering the development in the first movement "masterly," the second movement pleasingly eccentric, and the third movement's main theme, "exquisitely tender and graceful," for example, and concluding his description of the fourth movement quite enthusiastically: "It flows on with resistless force, constantly gathering fresh energy as new ideas are added, and finally closes with a triumphant outburst in which the principal subject is heard again asserting its superiority."  There are no qualifications in his praise.

I suspect that Upton, unlike modern listeners, may have heard Rubinstein himself conduct the work (or at least heard someone who knew Rubinstein's interpretation).  Rubinstein himself took 58 minutes to get through the piece, and almost certainly did not sanction cuts.  Assuming that his account of the slow movement was more akin to Golovchin's than Stankovsky's, that leaves about 45 minutes for the other three movements.  It's clear that the first, second, and fourth movements must be played with extreme vigor (though with room for ebbs and flows in tempo as befit the various motifs). In addition, if we abandon the fixation on Schumann and Mendelssohn which plagues Rubinstein criticism and recognize the relation of this symphony to Schubert's 9th, it also becomes clear that a proper performance has to take the lyric nature of the structure into account.  Rubinstein centered his music on melody, and treated melodies and melodic fragments as blocks of sound which could be superimposed upon each other at will (quite different from a contrapuntal approach). To expect this symphony to sound, or work, like Brahms or even Schumann, is an error of interpretation.  Ironically, Rubinstein's method, here and elsewhere, is rather more akin (in approach, though definitely not in sound) to Wagner's attitude to the symphonic tradition; Wagner described the development sections of even the greatest symphonies as 'the clattering of dishes at a royal feast').

I would very much like to hear a recording of this symphony by a specialist in Prokofiev, say; such an approach would be able to make the most of what Upton rightly singled out as "startling dissonances and complicated chromatic passages," and bring the symphony properly to life, something not done by either recording presently available.

[Mark Thomas]

What a fascinating exposition, Saxtromba. You've encouraged me to add Rubinstein's Fourth to my listening schedule for tomorrow and I'll try to approach it in a more positive frame of mind than I have done before.

[Alan Howe]

I've done my duty and re-auditioned the piece. Far too long. Terrible finale. No change, I'm afraid. However, I'm all the more convinced that a performance needs to be much bolder (and faster in I, II and IV) for it to make any real effect - although, having said that, I just don't think the piece is great music.
By comparison, when I first heard Rufinatscha 6 in an expansive performance, I could still recognise it for the grand work it is; I prefer the tauter approach of Noseda, but don't think the piece requires it. Not so, it would appear, with R4.

[JimL]

A minor quibble, and off-topic, but not worth an entire thread: since you brought up Rufinatscha, in light of the recent discovery that the (old) 3rd Symphony isn't a symphony, and that the recently discovered work is the 3rd Symphony, and that there is no 6th since there are only 5, would it be possible to start using the new numbering?  In other words, you mean the 5th, Alan.

[eschiss1]

(that sort of thing makes me want to start a topic inspired by a rather better-known composer, name of Dvorak, though the symphony-renumberings of his are just best-known... compare the numberings of the symphonies of Haydn or Mozart (when only about a dozen of each were generally played anyway, mostly) most often used in the early-to-mid 19th-century to those most often used today- but... anyway. Sorry...)

[Mark Thomas]

Back to Rubinstein's Fourth.

As promised, I sat down and listened to it, in Stankovsky's performance on Marco Polo, this afternoon. I must say first of all that it was a more powerful and enjoyable work than I remembered it to be. Stankovsky's interpretation and his orchestra's playing struck me as strong and direct, with only the odd passage which seemed diffident or just plain too slow. Rubinstein has the gift both of writing instantly memorable melodic ideas and of conjuring up appropriately colourful orchestration in which to clothe them, so that the score abounds, at least in the first three movements, with effective and highly attractive episodes. What, it seems to me, he did not achieve in this symphony at least is to meld those episodes into a convincing symphonic edifice.

I understand Saxtromba's contention that Rubinstein "treated melodies and melodic fragments as blocks of sound which could be superimposed upon each other at will" but I would be more convinced of his skill as a symphonist firstly if at the same time he hadn't also attempted a sonata structure for the first movement and secondly if those ideas were capable of sustaining its 25 minute length. They aren't, attractive and appropriate for Rubinstein's purpose though they are. Whilst I'm the last person to accept untested the prejudicial criticism of the past, I do have to agree with Rubinstein's detractors that his self-confessed disinterest in reviewing or revising his scores, which he seems to have laid down in a sort of "stream of consciousness" manner, lets him down when writing large works. The movement, however he constructed it, would be so much more effective were it half the length and that's down to Rubinstein because, although they could have been tightened up here and there, there doesn't seem too much wrong with Stankovsky's tempi. What has to be conveyed here is drama, so speed has to be tempered with some appropriate weight.

In the middle two movements Rubinstein is on much safer ground and I thought the third, slow, movement a real gem which doesn't outstay its welcome. The material of the second movement is a delight but, again, at 15 minutes long it is about double the length it needs to be. There is an enormous amount of pointless repetition here, even allowing for the fact that Stankovsky could have got more of a move on. I haven't seen the score, so I don't know if Stankovsky is observing repeats indicated by Rubinstein or if the composer has re-used episodes but in a different order. Either way, enjoyable though it is, less would be more.

I'm afraid that, for me, the material of the finale is not up to the level of inspiration which Rubinstein achieved in the other movements and so it doesn't go anywhere near disguising Rubinstein's prolixity. Even though it is eight minutes shorter than the opening movement, its 17 minutes seem interminable by comparison.

So, I'm very pleased that I renewed my acquaintance with the Fourth, even though my overall view of the work wasn't changed. If the shade of Anton Grigorevich asks my advice on his Symphony this Halloween night, I will say: "Keep all their basic material but cut the first two movements in half, leave the slow movement alone, replace the finale with a better one no more than 10 minutes long and you'll have a winner of a 40 minute symphony".

[Alan Howe]

Trouble is, a symphony with a finale that is such a failure is not a work I can take seriously as a whole. For me it's still a dud overall, I'm afraid.