# Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances - let the tamtam ring (or not)



## techniquest

Rachmaninov's "Symphonic Dances" is one of my favourite orchestral works: the beautiful themes, exciting orchestral colour, and that certain something that, for me, is completely missing in his very popular 2nd symphony. 
However there are recordings where, at the very end (last note), the conductor allows the tamtam to continue ringing until it fades (e.g. Polyansky / Russian State Symphony Orchestra nn Chandos) while others clip it so that it stops along with the rest of the orchestra (e.g Gergiev / LSO on LSO Live). What do you think is best?
Also, which recording of the Symphonic Dances is your particular favourite, and why? Conversely, which recording do you especially not rate, and why? Let's have a 'Symphonic Dances' discussion


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## EdwardBast

I like Symphonic Dances too, but it is not in the same category as the Second Symphony. I've not heard anyone let the tam-tam ring, but one would think Rachmaninoff would have made the choice unequivocally in the score. Anyone have one handy?


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## chesapeake bay

Such an invigorating piece, I'd have to go with Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic, they just seem to get everything right.


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## EdwardBast

I checked a score and it is clearly indicated that the tam-tam is to ring after all of the other instruments cut out. The tam-tam has a dotted quarter note whereas everyone else has an 8th and two 8th rests, and to make sure it is perfectly clear, "Laisser vibrer" is added. So, I prefer to hear it as Rachmaninoff intended.

The fact that he quotes the Isle of the Dead and his First Symphony/i makes the work especially poignant. The score of the First Symphony had not been reconstructed (I think) at the time of the premier of Symphonic Dances, so this recapitulation in a calm major-mode setting of the most disastrous episode in his career (The First Symphony bombed and he became depressed.) could only have been meant as an inside joke.


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## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> I checked a score and it is clearly indicated that the tam-tam is to ring after all of the other instruments cut out. The tam-tam has a dotted quarter note whereas everyone else has an 8th and two 8th rests, and to make sure it is perfectly clear, "Laisser vibrer" is added. So, I prefer to hear it as Rachmaninoff intended.
> 
> The fact that he quotes the Isle of the Dead and his First Symphony/i makes the work especially poignant. The score of the First Symphony had not been reconstructed (I think) at the time of the premier of Symphonic Dances, so this recapitulation in a calm major-mode setting of the most disastrous episode in his career (The First Symphony bombed and he became depressed.) could only have been meant as a inside joke.


Thanks for clearing that up. This has long been one of my favorite orchestral works (by anyone, in fact) and I've always found it odd and unsatisfying when conductors put the dampers on an instrument that by its very nature wants to ring on. Now I'm wondering who started the tradition of stopping it. Maybe R. should have added a fermata and a diminuendo sign for good measure!


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## bghill

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for clearing that up. This has long been one of my favorite orchestral works (by anyone, in fact) and I've always found it odd and unsatisfying when conductors put the dampers on an instrument that by its very nature wants to ring on. Now I'm wondering who started the tradition of stopping it. Maybe R. should have added a fermata and a diminuendo sign for good measure!


I suppose the l.v. might be interpreted as applying only to the measure it appears in (3rd from the end) rather than the entire tam tam passage? Conductors are often not shy about applying their artistic license, in any case.


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## EdwardBast

bghill said:


> I suppose the l.v. might be interpreted as applying only to the measure it appears in (3rd from the end) rather than the entire tam tam passage? Or the conductors were just applying their artistic license. It's a rare score that is truly unequivocal - especially in the percussion parts.


Rachmaninoff made sure there was no license here. If it was meant to cut off with the other instruments, he would have written an 8th note and an additional verbal cue just to confirm that the Laisser vibrer indication was no longer in force. There is nothing remotely ambiguous about this.


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## EdwardBast

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for clearing that up. This has long been one of my favorite orchestral works (by anyone, in fact) and I've always found it odd and unsatisfying when conductors put the dampers on an instrument that by its very nature wants to ring on. Now I'm wondering who started the tradition of stopping it. Maybe R. should have added a fermata and a diminuendo sign for good measure!


Now that the final measure is clear  … I think it is a wonderful piece as well, but a little on the light side. Among his late works I prefer the Third Symphony. I find the biographical, self-quotation element distracting (part of the reason I never warmed to Shostakovich's 8th quartet). Just a personal thing, perhaps, but I like a work to establish its own world and to get lost in that world. When external factors filter in I lose that "lost" quality and find myself looking into a frame rather than walking in a landscape.


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## FLighT

Just thinking about this recently as I compared a few recorded versions. While the score may (or not) call for it to die away naturally (I don't have a copy), I much prefer it to be damped immediately. The end of this movement builds to a ferociously loud, pounding, climax that feels like an emphatic "done!" on the final note. The immediate onset of silence is deafening. I like that.


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## EdwardBast

FLighT said:


> Just thinking about this recently as I compared a few recorded versions. While the score may (or not) call for it to die away naturally (I don't have a copy), I much prefer it to be damped immediately. The end of this movement builds to a ferociously loud, pounding, climax that feels like an emphatic "done!" on the final note. The immediate onset of silence is deafening. I like that.


Problem solved; you don't need a score now. The score unequivocally calls for the tam-tam to ring, as one can see in this excerpt from the final three measures. The tam-tam part is the one not like the others, the one with the dotted quarter and the indication _Laisser vibrer_:









The problems with letting the tam-tam ring, for the conductor especially, are obvious: When it is damped immediately, the audience knows exactly when to launch into thunderous applause and mass adulation. When it rings, the end of the work becomes indeterminate, and applause is more likely to build gradually as the reverberations fade. For whatever reason, Rachmaninoff's intention has been ignored more often than it has been observed. I too am used to hearing it dampened.


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## techniquest

Now that the question of the ringing tamtam has been sorted out (thanks EdwardBast), what recordings do you particularly like (or not)? And what is your preference regarding the tamtam? Personally I prefer it to continue to ring, though I take the point about the audience and live performances. I've heard a good few live performances from radio broadcasts (sadly I've never had the opportunity to see it performed live myself) and invariably, the audience starts to clap before the sound has died (imagine the fuss if this happened during 'The Planets'). My current preference for recordings is the recent Naxos disc with the Detroit SO and Leonard Slatkin which also includes the 3rd Symphony.


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## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> The fact that he quotes the Isle of the Dead and his First Symphony/i makes the work especially poignant. The score of the First Symphony had not been reconstructed (I think) at the time of the premier of Symphonic Dances, so this recapitulation in a calm major-mode setting of the most disastrous episode in his career (The First Symphony bombed and he became depressed.) could only have been meant as an inside joke.





EdwardBast said:


> I think it is a wonderful piece as well, but a little on the light side ... I find the biographical, self-quotation element distracting ...


Bit confused here. Maybe I misunderstand but it seems like you find the self-quotation both poignant and distracting?

I think the Dances are truly fantastic, and one of my favourite works of his (and there are many). As an aside, I do think it's a compelling summation of his career's output so to speak, and the masterpiece that single-handedly salvages his post-Russia years from being ultimately unfulfilled (despite the strengths of the 4th piano concerto / 3rd symphony).

And also, the orchestration throughout the work is really top notch. The use of piano in the first movement, solo violin in the second, percussion in the third ... and of course *that* saxophone solo.


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## tdc

My favorite Rachmaninov pieces are Symphony 3, Symphonic Dances and Isle of the Dead. 

I think he uses a more modern harmonic language in the Symphonic Dances, compared with the gushing Romanticism of Symphony 2.


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## Woodduck

tdc said:


> My favorite Rachmaninov pieces are Symphony 3, Symphonic Dances and Isle of the Dead.
> 
> I think he uses a more modern harmonic language in the Symphonic Dances, compared with the gushing Romanticism of Symphony 2.


Interesting that the _Symphonic Dances_' "modern" harmonic language is really just chromaticism that could easily have been used fifty years earlier. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism, any more than I'd criticize his early work for being old-fashioned. I admire artists who have little use for trends and fashions, know exactly what they want to say, and insist on remaining true to themselves. Rach developed in his own way, and his harmonic sense in his late period is amazingly subtle.

My favorites among his works are the same as yours, with the addition of _The Bells,_ which he claimed was his own favorite. When I was young I missed the expansiveness of his earlier work, and I still love the incomparable outpouring of melody in the second symphony, the cello sonata, the first three piano concertos, etc. But the late works, with their sharp concision, harmonic subtlety, wonderful sensitivity to orchestral color, and evanescent moods haunted by the remembrance of things past, bewitch me as few other works of music do.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Interesting that the _Symphonic Dances_' "modern" harmonic language is really just chromaticism that could easily have been used fifty years earlier. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism...


Rachmaninoff, like some other Russians, seems strangely caught in a time-warp of sorts. Russia's isolation has caused this sort of artistic phenomena before. I think that Shostakovich producing as much as he did is also indicative of this sort of "lost in time" quality to much Russian music. What do you think about this speculation?


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## Becca

Perhaps it is just my perversity showing through but I have never really warmed to the popular Rachmaninoff, i.e. the concerti and the mature symphonies. The works which have connected with me since first hearing are _The Isle of the Dead_, Symphony #1 and _Symphonic Dances_. As to the latter, I would find it hard to choose a version ... the Previn from the 80s is very good, as is a live BPO/Rattle performance that came from early in the last season (and, I think, was done at the Proms).


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## Skilmarilion

Woodduck said:


> Interesting that the _Symphonic Dances_' "modern" harmonic language is really just chromaticism that could easily have been used fifty years earlier. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism, any more than I'd criticize his early work for being old-fashioned. I admire artists who have little use for trends and fashions, know exactly what they want to say, and insist on remaining true to themselves.


To a limited extent I think Rachmaninov tried to embrace elements of the 'innovations' in music during his lifetime. A couple of examples could be the Jazz-influenced slow movement of the 4th piano concerto and the somewhat Prokofievian rhythmic bite and colour that are there in the Symphonic Dances, but ultimately he didn't care and he didn't feel like he had to prove anything to anyone.

The usual narrative often asserts that he was conservative and old-fashioned, but that narrative hides the rather audacious attitude that someone like that actually possessed.

btw -- is anyone else ever amused by Rachmaninov's tempo marking of *non allegro*? He does this in the 2nd piano sonata as well. I mean, what is that even supposed to mean?!


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## Woodduck

Millionrainbows: "Rachmaninoff, like some other Russians, seems strangely caught in a time-warp of sorts. Russia's isolation has caused this sort of artistic phenomena before. I think that Shostakovich producing as much as he did is also indicative of this sort of "lost in time" quality to much Russian music. What do you think about this speculation?"

Makes sense. Historically - ever since Peter the Great, I guess - Russia has always been "behind the times" in absorbing Western culture, and has never done so completely. In the 19th century Russian music was simultaneously embracing and resisting Europe: trying to be Western, yet trying to be Russian as opposed to Western. Rachmaninoff inherited the whole dualistic tradition - then moved to a third civilization (if that's the right word), America. No wonder his late work sounds so deeply "lost in time."


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## EdwardBast

millionrainbows said:


> Rachmaninoff, like some other Russians, seems strangely caught in a time-warp of sorts. Russia's isolation has caused this sort of artistic phenomena before. I think that Shostakovich producing as much as he did is also indicative of this sort of "lost in time" quality to much Russian music. What do you think about this speculation?


Rachmaninoff was an international figure for the majority of his life, conducting in Germany (1905-6?) and performing as a virtuoso pianist all over the world in the early years of the 20thc. He did not live in Russia after 1917. What isolation he felt was self-imposed. He was exposed to modern music but said that he simply didn't understand it. The problem with Shostakovich et alia, if there was one, wasn't isolation. It was wanting to keep their careers as composers. Beyond personal motivation, I would think Shostakovich produced massive amounts of music because that was his job.


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## Woodduck

Skilmarilion said:


> To a limited extent I think Rachmaninov tried to embrace elements of the 'innovations' in music during his lifetime. A couple of examples could be the Jazz-influenced slow movement of the 4th piano concerto and the somewhat Prokofievian rhythmic bite and colour that are there in the Symphonic Dances, but ultimately he didn't care and he didn't feel like he had to prove anything to anyone.
> 
> The usual narrative often asserts that he was conservative and old-fashioned, but that narrative hides the rather audacious attitude that someone like that actually possessed.
> 
> btw -- is anyone else ever amused by Rachmaninov's tempo marking of *non allegro*? He does this in the 2nd piano sonata as well. I mean, what is that even supposed to mean?!


Which movements have that marking? I suppose it means "this may look as if it's supposed to go really fast, but restrain yourself." Really, is "allegro" that much more specific?


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## Skilmarilion

Woodduck said:


> Which movements have that marking?


First movement.








> I suppose it means "this may look as if it's supposed to go really fast, but restrain yourself." Really, is "allegro" that much more specific?


Yeah true, although if taken literally it could be anything other than "allegro", i.e. it could be taken either lento or vivace.


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## Woodduck

Skilmarilion said:


> First movement.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah true, although if taken literally it could be anything other than "allegro", i.e. it could be taken either lento or vivace.


For something really incomprehensible, how about "non moderato"?


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## Radames

I was just thinking about this after seeing the other Rachmaninoff thread. On a recording I like letting the tam-tam ring. In a live concert it can be a problem because the audience claps before the tam-tam fades out. I heard Dutoit conduct it at SPAC with Philly and he muted it at the end. I have not heard his commercial recording of it. I like the Previn where he lets it fade out for quite a while. Svetlanov didn't let it ring though.


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## Animal the Drummer

He doesn't, but I love that performance. The other one I'd recommend is Ashkenazy's with the Concertgebouw.


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## SearsPoncho

Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra by light years. It was written for them, premiered by them, and Rachmaninov even consulted with Ormandy on the orchestration. Ormandy and the fabulous Philadelphia Orchestra is always a safe bet with Rach's orchestral music. Lush, full strings, but the clarity and rhythmic accents are never lost. I have an old cd; I hope it was remastered.

I attended a performance with Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra many moons ago. It was a great performance and perfect for that conductor and orchestra.


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## Josquin13

I agree with SearsPoncho. I'm not normally a huge fan of Ormandy's conducting, but his recording of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances with the Philadelphia Orchestra would easily be my top pick, as well. & it helps that the Philadelphia orchestra plays extremely well.






Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra are good, too (but not nearly as good as Ormandy & the Philadelphia orchestra):














By the way, Andre Previn also recorded the two piano version, with pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy (who has special affinity for Rachmaninov's music, whether it be as a pianist or conductor):


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## Strange Magic

SearsPoncho said:


> Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra by light years. It was written for them, premiered by them, and Rachmaninov even consulted with Ormandy on the orchestration. Ormandy and the fabulous Philadelphia Orchestra is always a safe bet with Rach's orchestral music. Lush, full strings, but the clarity and rhythmic accents are never lost. I have an old cd; I hope it was remastered.
> 
> I attended a performance with Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra many moons ago. It was a great performance and perfect for that conductor and orchestra.


I had the original 33 vinyl, with Ormandy and the Philadelphia, and it was fabulous. The two-piano version is good listening also, and I conjure up Rachmaninoff and Horowitz pounding away in L.A. on many an evening after dinner on Rachmaninoff's two grands


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## Enthusiast

It's a work I love, too. It is easily my favourite piece of his. I was recently listening to the version for piano duet which was stimulating. As for my favourite recordings, I agree that Ashkenazy's is (among others) very good but the one that really seems to deliver the most for me is that by Jansons, his second (I think) recording, the one with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

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## SixFootScowl

Never heard this one, but I like the cover:


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## tdc

Becca said:


> Perhaps it is just my perversity showing through but I have never really warmed to the popular Rachmaninoff, i.e. the concerti and the mature symphonies. The works which have connected with me since first hearing are _The Isle of the Dead_, Symphony #1 and _Symphonic Dances_. As to the latter, I would find it hard to choose a version ... the Previn from the 80s is very good, as is a live BPO/Rattle performance that came from early in the last season (and, I think, was done at the Proms).


Ok I see this post is quite old, but still I find it a little puzzling someone would like the Symphonic Dances but not the 3rd Symphony, they are both mature works composed around the same time using a similar harmonic language.


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