Sergei Rachmaninoff :: essays research papers

Probably the most venerable of Rachmaninoffs compositions is the Second Piano Concerto, a work whose existence is attributed to the auto-suggestion therapy of a Dr. Nicholas dahl. Rachmaninoffs need for the good doctors services came closely in this manner in 1897, the composer was in the throes of despair over the unsuccessful person of his First Symphony at its premiere at St. Petersburg. Nothing, not still subsequent success in London in his unusual double role of pianist, conductor, and composer, could dispel the agony of the defeat. Depressed and unable to work on a concerto he had promised to bring with him on his next London visit, Rachmaninoff took the Dahl treatment. This consisted of four months of daily sessions with the doctor, who bombarded the patient with constantly repeated, "You will begin to write your concerto... The concerto will be of superior quality..."He did write the concerto, dedicating it to Dahl, and it is indeed of excellent quality, a ju dgment audiences have been making since it was played by the composer for the first time on October 27, 1901. It immediately took its place as one of the quintessential romantic showpieces for piano and orchestra, and this in spite of the fact that the solo is very much sonically buried in unyielding orchestral textures. There are, to be sure, virtuosic flights aplenty for the piano, and musical ones, too, but the work is hardly all the pianists show.The Concerto opens with a series of rather ponderous, static, unaccompanied piano chords which lead to the orchestras statement of a sardonic main motive taken by the strings small-arm the keyboard spills out continuous cascades of harmonic embellishment. Finally a militant answer by the piano on the first two notes of the main theme leads to a melodically and harmonically luxurious second theme given by piano alone. This is the breathless, heart-on-sleeve expressiveness that Rachmaninoff is all about, and its being in a major key helps to correct the notion that Rachmaninoff in excelsis must be somber and maudlin.