RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2
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1000 YEARS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC 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 SERGEI RACHMANINOFF 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 Russia, but the Russian Revolution forced him to leave Ayako Uehara piano, Sydney 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 Europe 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 • The colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and $ Variation 9 (Un poco più mosso) 1’11 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, Charles Dutoit 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.