1000 YEARS OF

RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2

VOLUME 73 | THE MODERN ERA FAST FACTS

• Rachmaninoff was not only a great composer, but also a brilliant pianist – one of the greatest the world has known. He wrote many pieces that feature the piano, either as solo instrument or for piano with orchestra, and regularly played them in his own concerts. They are often very difficult pieces to play, but Rachmaninoff wasn’t particularly interested in flashy, virtuosic playing for its own sake: he was much more RACHMANINOFF concerned with exploring the piano’s potential for expressing emotion. Piano Concerto No. 2 • His composing career suffered a serious setback in 1897, with the premiere of his Symphony No. 1: the 1873–1943 critics tore it to shreds, and Rachmaninoff lost all confidence in his ability to compose. He fell into a deep 1 Elegy in E-flat minor, Op. 3 No. 1 6’25 depression that lasted for several years, and was unable to write anything until he underwent a course of 2 Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2 4’02 psychotherapy. The piece which got him composing again was the Piano Concerto No. 2; unlike the First Tamara-Anna Cislowska piano Symphony, it was a huge success and has remained a favourite to this day. 3 3’12 Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43: 18th Variation • Rachmaninoff was deeply attached to his native , but the Russian Revolution forced him to leave Ayako Uehara piano, Symphony Orchestra, the country for good. Although he didn’t really like the USA, he couldn’t find a steady income anywhere in Edvard Tchivzhel conductor LIVE RECORDING to support his family, so he ended up living in New York, working as a concert pianist. Even in that 4 Prelude in B minor, Op. 32 No. 10 5’38 cosmopolitan city, he did his best to recreate the atmosphere of his beloved homeland, surrounding himself Tamara-Anna Cislowska piano with Russian guests, hiring Russian servants and observing Russian customs. [20’01] Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 • As a pianist, his heavy touring schedule made it very difficult to find time or energy to compose, and he 5 Theme (Andante) 0’57 wrote only a handful of major works during his 26 years of exile. Two of those pieces are featured on this 6 Variation 1 (Poco più mosso) 0’41 CD: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, and the 18th Variation of his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. 7 Variation 2 (L’istesso tempo) 0’42 8 Variation 3 (Tempo di Menuetto) 0’42 9 Variation 4 (Andante) 1’11 0 Variation 5 (Allegro, ma non tanto) 0’25 ! Variation 6 (L’istesso tempo) 0’26 @ Variation 7 (Vivace) 0’34 £ Variation 8 (Adagio misterioso) 1’15 $ Variation 9 (Un poco più mosso) 1’11 • The colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South , Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia come together as the Commonwealth of Australia, with Edmund % Variation 10 (Allegro scherzando) 0’40 Barton as the first Prime Minister. A national census gives the population of the new ^ Variation 11 (Allegro vivace) 0’22 nation as 3,773,801 (not counting Indigenous Australians). & Variation 12 (L’istesso tempo) 0’37 * Variation 13 (Agitato) 0’34 • Scotland Yard establishes the UK’s first Fingerprint Bureau. It’s not the first in the world, ( Intermezzo 1’32 though: Calcutta has had one since 1897. ) Variation 14 (Andante, come prima) 1’18 • American salesman King Camp Gillette patents his design for a safety razor using thin, ¡ Variation 15 (L’istesso tempo) 1’54 disposable blades of stamped steel. In the UK, Hubert Cecil Booth invents the vacuum ™ Variation 16 (Allegro vivace) 0’30 cleaner; the first model is petrol powered, and so big that it has to be transported by # Variation 17 (Meno mosso) 1’02 1901 horse and carriage. ¢ Variation 18 (Allegro con brio) 0’27 • The first Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Wilhelm Röntgen, for his discovery ∞ Variation 19 (Più mosso. Agitato) 0’27 of X-rays. § Variation 20 (Più mosso) 0’58 ¶ Coda (Andante) 1’29 • Gustav Klimt paints Judith and the Head of Holofernes; the 19-year-old Pablo Picasso Duncan Gifford piano gives his first exhibition, in Paris. Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 [33’06] • And in Moscow, Sergei Rachmaninoff gives the world premiere of his Second • I. Moderato 9’54 Piano Concerto ª II. Adagio sostenuto 12’02 º III. Allegro scherzando 11’02 Roger Woodward piano, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conductor LIVE RECORDING

Total Playing Time 73’06

— 2 — Rachmaninoff and the Piano when I start to play the second theme, that that is what it is. Everyone will think that this is the beginning of the concerto. To my mind the whole movement is spoilt, and from this moment it is absolutely Attempts are often made to provide connections (no matter how tenuous) between the tempestuous lives repulsive to me. I’m in despair! of composers and their artistic creations. Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is one of those rare cases where such an approach is actually justified. Yet the concerto was an astounding and lasting success, and the response assured Rachmaninoff once and for all that his compositional ability remained intact. Indeed this work established his fame as a concerto In 1897, the premiere of the First Symphony, which Rachmaninoff had been anticipating for nearly two composer, and its almost unbroken lyricism has led not only to its enduring popularity, but also to its plagiarism years, turned out to be a disaster. He could not understand what was happening when he heard the jarring, by songwriters the world over! cacophonous noises being produced by the orchestra. Immediately after his ordeal he rushed from the concert hall, frantic and tormented by his failure. Rachmaninoff retreated from Moscow and although he had told One of the most original features of the concerto is its opening – a series of eight chords and deep bass fellow-composer Zatayevich that the failure had not affected him, he was unable to compose anything else of notes for the piano. This introduction is so familiar that one might easily overlook its novelty in 1901. Another importance for the next two years. In his own eyes, he was finished as a composer at the age of 24. unusual characteristic of the first movement is that the solo part, ironically, spends a good deal of its time in accompaniment; the melody remains with the orchestra. Unlike many concertos, there is no first movement It was fortunate therefore that he was offered a conducting position with the Moscow Private Russian Opera cadenza where the soloist can display virtuosity. Instead, the soloist must demonstrate brilliant musicianship Company for the 1897–98 season. However, after what turned out to be a hugely successful conducting through the establishment of a close relationship between piano and orchestra. season, Rachmaninoff settled back into a further period of compositional inactivity. He mulled over some ideas for a new concerto (his Second), promising to play it at one of his publisher Belyaev’s Russian Symphony After a muted orchestral introduction, the lyrical second movement opens with the piano playing a series of Concerts. By August 1898 he had committed nothing to paper and Arensky’s concerto had to be performed slow, soft, gradually-descending arpeggio passages. This material is further developed until an acceleration of in its place. the tempo leads to a cadenza followed by a brief coda.

Close friends and relatives became concerned about the composer’s fragile mental state. Early in 1900, in At the beginning of the finale, a rhythmic fragment from the first movement appears briefly. This is an effort to cheer him up, Princess Alexandra Liven arranged for Rachmaninoff to meet his hero Tolstoy. noteworthy, given that the finale was written before the first movement, in which the motif is far more The meeting with the notoriously antisocial novelist, however, only made the composer’s condition worse. prominent. After this short orchestral introduction, the piano enters with a cadenza before the appearance of Rachmaninoff’s discovery that his ‘god’ was in fact a ‘very disagreeable man’ seemed the last straw in this the first subject proper. The interest in this theme, as with the openings to all Rachmaninoff’s finales, is as severe bout of depression and low self-esteem. much rhythmic as melodic. A preparation for a change of mood is provided by a passage in which the piano outlines the first subject in more rhapsodic form, and leads directly into the second subject, played first by the Out of desperation, his cousin’s family decided that it would be wise for him to seek professional help. They oboes and violas. A brief cadenza culminates in a majestic statement of the second subject, after which the enlisted the services of Dr Nikolay Dahl, a psychotherapist, who had for some years specialised in treatment by concerto comes to a brilliant conclusion. hypnosis. Whether this actually formed part of Rachmaninoff’s therapy is questionable. It is more likely that the treatment consisted of extended conversations between the doctor and his patient on a wide range of musical Nina Apollonov topics. (Dahl himself was an accomplished amateur musician.)  Whatever the treatment Dahl prescribed for Rachmaninoff’s mental state, it seems to have had the desired Rachmaninoff’s so-called Variations on a Theme of Corelli are in reality a sort of chaconne on a melody called effect, for his enthusiasm for composition returned and his inspiration – which had been dammed up for nearly ‘La Folia’, used by other composers before Corelli, who in turn utilised the theme in his Sonata No. 12. three years – once more flowed freely. Rachmaninoff’s mastery of the variation form is indisputable, but it is inextricably linked with his performance Having travelled to the south of the Crimea for recuperation with the great singer Chaliapin in June and July style as a pianist. One has to know his personal style of piano-playing from his records and rolls; then, looking of 1900, Rachmaninoff began the long-postponed work on the Second Piano Concerto. These ideas were at a score such as the Corelli Variations (which he didn’t record), an aural picture of how he might have written down after his return to Russia in August, and two completed movements, the second and third, were performed this piece springs to mind: the tight rhythm, the chiselled phrasing, the austere, reined-in emotion, performed for the first time on 2 December (according to the new-style calendar) at a charity concert, in spite of the perfect control of voices. a severe cold and considerable nervousness on Rachmaninoff’s part. In 1931, Rachmaninoff was without a permanent abode and involved in much travel. Composition was slow They were received so warmly that Rachmaninoff was encouraged to complete the first movement shortly and sporadic, and the fluency of earlier days was gone. One of the first musicians to hear the Corelli Variations thereafter. In gratitude to the doctor who had extracted him from the depths of depression, Rachmaninoff was the musicologist Alfred Swan. He relates: ‘Sitting down at the piano, half reading from the manuscript and dedicated the completed concerto to Dr Dahl. half playing from memory, with miraculous facility, he went from one variation to another... In twelve variations Rachmaninoff leads us through an ever-winding labyrinth of rhythmic and melodic figures. Then the onslaught Nearly a year after the performance of the last two movements, on 24 November 1901, the premiere of the on the tonality is made with a torrent of cadenzas. While playing it, he said: “All this mad running about is completed concerto took place at a Moscow Philharmonic Society Concert, with Rachmaninoff playing the solo. necessary in order to efface the theme.”’ Despite his newly-found confidence, shortly before the premiere, he had suffered another attack of nerves, largely because of the bluntness of a fellow composer, Nikita Morozov. In response to Rachmaninoff’s request In fact, at this point in the Variations, having remained the original key of D minor all the way, Rachmaninoff for his opinion of the piece, Morozov had been scathing. Penning this reply just five days before the premiere, sideslips into D-flat major, and provides a nocturnal touch to the variations. Then, a return to D minor, and a Rachmaninoff wrote: quiet Coda to complete the set of 20 variations.

You are right, Nikita Semyonovich! I have just played through the first movement of my concerto, and only The key of the Variations, D minor, and the layout of the figurations, suggest that Bach’s famous violin now has it suddenly become clear to me that the transition from the first theme to the second is no good Chaconne in the same key was lurking at the back of the composer’s mind. The dedication to his friend and at all; in this form the first theme is not a first theme, but an introduction. Not even a fool would believe, sonata partner Fritz Kreisler strengthens the violin connection, already made through the name of Corelli,

— 3 — wrongly named as the composer of the theme. Whereas Bach moves into D major in the middle of his Chaconne, Rachmaninoff, ever the Romantic, chooses the luxuriant key of D-flat major; but the notion of a contrasting shift to a major key is at least similar.

Interestingly, in the printed score, Rachmaninoff suggests that Variations 11, 12 and 19 can be omitted in performance. It was a habit he had begun in his own playing of the work, although initially in jest: on tour, he decided that if the audience coughed, he would skip a variation. In 1931, on tour, his best tally was in New York, where he managed to play 18 out of 20 variations; the worse was in some provincial centre, where the coughing was so violent that he only managed to perform ten!  Larry Sitsky

The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is also a set of variations. It was his last work for piano and orchestra, completed quickly, between 3 July and 18 August 1934, in Switzerland, where he had built a country home on the banks of Lake Lucerne – a tranquil haven where he could escape from the demands of his hectic touring schedule. It was premiered in November of the same year, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and was such an overwhelming success that RCA ushered the artists into the studio within six weeks of the premiere, where it was promptly recorded.

The term ‘rhapsody’ implies freedom, but, contrarily enough, Rachmaninoff’s piece follows a quasi-concerto structure. The theme and variations 1–10 form the opening ‘movement’; variations 11–18 are a kind of slow movement; and variations 19–24, the finale. Rachmaninoff at the piano, c.1936. Variation 18, at the end of the ‘slow movement’, is the most famous part of the Rhapsody and in some ways, its most ingenious. Paganini’s bustling theme, which has been driving the work forward and providing ample opportunity for virtuosic display, is here simply inverted and played slowly; the result is one of classical music’s most ravishing moments.  Cyrus Meher-Homji & Lyle Chan In his solo piano writing as much as in his concertante works, Rachmaninoff the virtuoso was concerned not with empty displays of technical skill, but with the expressive possibilities of his instrument. This is clear even in early works like the Elegy in E-flat minor, written in 1892, the year after the composer graduated from the Moscow Conservatory; it’s the first of a set of five Morceaux de fantaisie which Rachmaninoff dedicated to Anton Arensky, his harmony teacher at the Conservatory. The mood is gently melancholic; the opening recalls the music of Chopin, with its wide-ranging arpeggios in the left hand and a simple but beautiful and infinitely flexible melody in the right.

Like massive tolling bells, the solemn, forceful chords that open the Prelude in C-sharp minor seem even more elegiac than the Elegy, but the music soon eases into a quieter sorrow. A more fluid central section begins in a whisper but its descending motif quickens into a cascade that becomes a maelstrom, before the bells return with chords of thunder. This Prelude, the second piece of the Morceaux de fantaisie set, was an immediate hit; in fact, it was so popular that Rachmaninoff came to hate it, as it became almost impossible for him to perform a concert without someone in the audience calling out for ‘the C-sharp minor!’ at the end.

The other prelude on this disc, the Prelude in B minor, Op. 32 No. 10, is from a 1910 set of 13 preludes which, when added to the famous C-sharp minor Prelude and another group of ten preludes written in 1903, make up a full set of 24, covering all the major and minor keys. It is inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting Die Heimkehr (The Homecoming), and, like the canvas, has at its heart a sense of immense foreboding, despite the apparently innocent nostalgia of its rustic opening phrases. Natalie Shea

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BAROQUE & BEFORE THE ROMANTIC ERA THE MODERN ERA 93 BARBER Adagio for Strings | Violin Concerto 1 GREGORIAN CHANT 34 SCHUBERT ‘Trout’ Quintet 63 DEBUSSY Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune | 94 MUSIC FROM THE MOVIES 2 MEDIEVAL CHORAL MUSIC 35 SCHUBERT Symphony No. 8 ‘Unfinished’ La Mer 95 SCULTHORPE The Fifth Continent 3 SACRED MUSIC OF THE RENAISSANCE 36 BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique 64 DEBUSSY Preludes 96 TAKEMITSU Music for Orchestra 4 ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 37 MENDELSSOHN The Hebrides | 65 ELGAR Cello Concerto | Sea Pictures 97 GÓRECKI Symphony of Sorrowful Songs 5 ITALIAN BAROQUE A Midsummer Night’s Dream 66 ELGAR Enigma Variations 98 GLASS | NYMAN Music for Solo Piano 6 PURCELL 38 MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto | 67 HOLST The Planets 99 MUSIC OF AUSTRALIA 7 BIBER Rosary Sonatas Piano Concerto No. 2 68 MUSIC OF 100 THE 21ST CENTURY 8 A. SCARLATTI Cantatas 39 CHOPIN Nocturnes 69 R. STRAUSS Four Last Songs 9 VIVALDI The Four Seasons 40 SCHUMANN Music for Solo Piano 70 SIBELIUS Violin Concerto 10 FRENCH BAROQUE 41 SCHUMANN Symphonies 3 & 4 71 SIBELIUS Symphonies 2 & 7 | Finlandia 11 PERGOLESI Stabat Mater 42 LISZT Years of Pilgrimage 72 RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 2 12 BACH Brandenburg Concertos 43 BIZET Arias and Overtures 73 RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2 13 BACH Music for Cello | Music for Violin 44 BRAHMS A German Requiem 74 SATIE Gymnopédies 14 BACH Sacred Arias and Choruses 45 BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 2 75 RAVEL Bolero | Mother Goose 15 BACH Music for Keyboard 46 BRUCKNER Symphony No. 4 76 RAVEL Chamber Music 16 HANDEL Water Music | Music for the 47 VIENNESE WALTZES 77 RESPIGHI Pines of Rome Royal Fireworks 48 DVOŘÁK Cello Concerto 78 SCHOENBERG Pelleas und Melisande 17 HANDEL Messiah 49 DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’ 79 BARTÓK Concerto for Orchestra | 18 HANDEL Arias 50 GRIEG Music for Orchestra Violin Concerto No. 2 51 GRIEG Piano Concerto | Music for Solo Piano 80 STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring THE CLASSICAL ERA 52 TCHAIKOVSKY The Nutcracker 81 PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 19 C.P.E. BACH 53 TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto | 82 CANTELOUBE Songs of the Auvergne 20 HAYDN Music for Orchestra Piano Concerto No. 1 83 GRAINGER 21 HAYDN Arias 84 ORFF Carmina burana 22 MOZART Symphonies 40 & 41 54 WAGNER Arias 85 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending | 23 MOZART Piano Concertos 55 VERDI Arias, Choruses and Overtures 24 MOZART Arias 56 VERDI Requiem Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis 25 MOZART Requiem 57 SAINT-SAËNS Carnival of the Animals | 86 POULENC Organ Concerto | Music for Solo Piano 26 MOZART Clarinet Concerto Symphony No. 3 ‘Organ’ 87 BRITTEN The Young Person’s Guide to the 27 BEETHOVEN String Quartets 58 MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition Orchestra | Four Sea Interludes 28 BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas 59 FAURÉ Requiem 88 COPLAND Appalachian Spring 29 BEETHOVEN Symphonies 3 & 5 60 PUCCINI Arias 89 RODRIGO Guitar Concertos 30 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 ‘Choral’ 61 MAHLER Symphony No. 4 90 GERSHWIN | BERNSTEIN 31 BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos 62 MAHLER Symphony No. 5 91 SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 8 32 HUMMEL 92 MESSIAEN Turangalîla-Symphonie 33 ROSSINI Arias and Overtures

— 5 — ABC Classics Executive Producer Toby Chadd 1000 YEARS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC Mastering Virginia Read Publications Editor Natalie Shea THE ERAS Cover Image MS Designs Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Photo p4 supplied courtesy of Wikimedia Commons BAROQUE & BEFORE c.1000 TO c.1750 Nina Apollonov’s annotation on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is reprinted with the kind permission of Symphony Services International. The age of the church and the court – with music from ancient 1, 2, 4 recorded in May 1998 in the Eugene Goossens Hall of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Ultimo Centre, chant to the treasures of the baroque, including Hildegard, Tallis, Sydney. Recording Producer: Andrew McKeich. Recording Engineer: Yossi Gabbay. Monteverdi, Vivaldi, JS Bach and Handel. 3 recorded live in July 2000 in the York Theatre, Seymour Centre, University of Sydney. Recording Producers: Malcolm Batty and Owen Chambers. Recording Engineers: Allan MacLean, Yossi Gabbay and Andrew Nash. THE CLASSICAL ERA c.1750 TO c.1820 5-¶ recorded in April 1993 in the Eugene Goossens Hall of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Ultimo Centre, Sydney. Recording Producer: Ralph Lane oam. Recording Engineer: Paul McGrath. The era of innovation – the birth of the symphony, the arrival of the •-º recorded live on 24 & 27 September 2003 in the Concert Hall. Recording Producer: Ralph Lane. piano, the first concerts, and the towering geniuses of Ludwig van Recording Engineer: Allan MacLean. Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 1000 Years of Classical Music Project Concept Toby Chadd, Robert Patterson THE ROMANTIC ERA c.1820 TO c.1900 Executive Producer Toby Chadd ABC Classics thanks Richard Buckham, Martin Buzacott, Matthew Dewey, Wendy McLeod, Ben Eliot Nielsen, Emma Revolution, heroism and ambition – told in music through the Paillas (ABC Classic FM), Michael Mason (ABC Radio), Steve Beck, Joshua Crowley, Caroline Kinny-Lewis (Digital Business virtuosic concertos of Chopin, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, and Development, ABC Commercial), Lisa Hresc, Jillian Reeves (Marketing, ABC Commercial), Lorraine Neilson (Symphony the operas of Puccini, Verdi and Wagner. Services International), Sophie Fraser, Hamish Lane, James Limon, Natalie Waller and Robert Patterson.

www.1000YearsofClassicalMusic.com THE MODERN ERA c.1900 TO THE PRESENT www.abcclassics.com

A world of fragmentation and a flourishing of diversity – from P 1999 1, 2, 4; P 2007 3; P 2011 5-¶; P 2014 •-º Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

music born out of World War I to 21st-century Australia, via French This compilation was first published in 2016 and any and all copyright in this compilation is owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Impressionism, Eastern European minimalism and American classics. C 2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Digitally distributed worldwide by The Orchard. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited.

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