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Tchaikovsky, Pytr Il'ich : Les saisons - 12 Morceaux caracteristiques No.3 "Chant de l'alouette" g-moll

Work Overview

Music ID : 22152
Instrumentation:Piano Solo 
Genre:pieces
Total Playing Time:2 min 00 sec
Copyright:Public Domain

Commentary (1)

Author : Yamamoto, Akihisa

Last Updated: June 25, 2019
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Note: This article is automatically translated from the original Japanese text. The author of the original work did not supervise this translation.

In the fields, flowers whisper,

In the sky, light sparkles,

The songs of spring larks

Overflow the boundless sky.

The epigraph is a quotation from Apollon Maykov's poetry collection In the Fields (1857), specifically from the poem "In the fields, flowers whisper...". It is a bright depiction of nature in early spring.

The melody of the main theme in G minor progresses with the right and left hands responding to each other. The melody of the middle section possesses the faint brightness of B-flat major but soon returns to G minor. Both melodies feature ornaments and staccato, aligning with the image of a chirping lark.

The short piece is generally filled with melancholy, and its mood diverges from the epigraph's image, which joyfully celebrates the arrival of spring. Regarding this discrepancy, musicologist Ichiyanagi, for example, interprets it in line with the Russian sense of seasons, stating that it "...personifies the nature of early spring, a mixture of sorrow and hope, in the image of a lark flying in a dull, low, hazy sky..." (from Russian Seasonal Customs, edited by Naroudo, Russian Folklore Society, p. 118). March is a delicate transitional period from winter to spring, with gradually fewer snowy days and the thick river ice from winter beginning to melt. To borrow Ichiyanagi's words, "nature awakens hesitantly."