Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 — 1893)
Piano Concerto No. 3 op. 75 in Eb Major  

In 1893, Tchaikovsky was adapting material from an unfinished symphony he’d worked on the previous year into this piano concerto. Perhaps because he was also busy with his Sixth Symphony, he died with only the first movement completed. Sergei Taniev completed Tchaikovsky’s sketches for the second and third movements and published them separately, named Andante and Finale. Together these make up the Third Piano Concerto.

A short playful bassoon solo begins the piece, quickly followed by the piano soloist echoing it. The sound is lush as the opening theme is transformed through many moods in an even partnership between soloist and orchestra. There’s a long cadenza, dramatic at first then reflective over a chain of trills. The orchestra bursts in, enthusiastically reworking the opening themes. The piano races to the end, hammering at virtuosic speed.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 —1908)
Scheherazade op. 35 

In this most dramatic take on the Arabian Nights, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade opens with the heavy brass laying down the Sultan’s stern proclamation against women. In response, a solo violin opens the curtain to Scheherazade’s world of magically exotic scenes, unwinding the tales of the Arabian Nights in a chain of gorgeously orchestrated melodies. Throughout the work, a solo violin represents the beguiling storyteller, sometimes accompanied by a harp, as one imagines Scheherazade might have accompanied herself. The grim opening chords represent both her cruel husband and, at times, the dramatic events of the stories he hears.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 — 1975)
Symphony No. 2 op. 14 B in Major, October

Russia’s October revolution of 1917 was meant to free the workers and herald a new age. Shostakovich was commissioned by Lev Shuglin, head of the Propaganda Department of the State Music Publishing House, to write a piece for the Revolution’s tenth anniversary. Shostakovich might have relished writing a piece to mirror his chaotic times and the yearning for a just society. But the authorities insisted on a text by the officially sanctioned poet Aleksander Bezymensk. The poem posits the workers’ struggle as already won, with Lenin as their champion.

Chaotic wandering string lines open the symphony, like a crowd at a loss for direction. The brass enter with low snarls and foreboding solos. Next comes a jumpy sardonic march. More frantic whirling music follows; an experiment in textures at a time when artistic experiments were politically suspect. Finally, (this was Shuglin’s suggestion), the choir is introduced with a factory siren. Shostakovich loathed Bezymensk’s poem and seemingly mocked it, making the choir’s declarations finally devolve into a pitchless shouting.