{ program notes
spinner of bittersweet melodies and master
of big musical gestures that have made
him such an audience favorite. When he
returned to his score at the height of the
Russian Revolution, he didn’t change any
of the melodies or the basic form of the
work from his student days at the Moscow
Conservatory. Instead, he used his vastly
more sophisticated skills to refine the
orchestration, increase the effectiveness of
the piano writing, and update harmonies
to the more chromatic language he’d
adopted after 1900.
The dates 1891 and 1917 mark a
profound transformation both in the
composer’s life and the history of Russia.
In 1891, Rachmaninoff was the scion of
a well-to-do land-owning family and the
star of the Moscow Conservatory. The
czar still sat on his throne, and the young
artist could look forward to a life of
privilege and the tranquility he so sorely
needed in order to create. By the fall of
1917, however, Nicholas II had been toppled, and Lenin and his Bolsheviks were
brutally seizing control. Desperate to flee
the bloodshed and chaos, the composer
pulled every string to get himself and his
family out of Russia. While he waited
for an escape route, he holed up in his
Moscow apartment with the concerto
he’d been meaning to revise for a decade.
As the revolution swirled around him, he
retreated into his own world: “I sat at the
writing-table or the piano all day without
troubling about the rattle of machineguns and rifle-shots.” Shortly after the
revision was completed, he received an
invitation for a Scandinavian concert
tour. Hastily obtaining visas, he, his wife,
and two daughters left Russia forever on
December 23, 1917. The world premiere
of the First Piano Concerto took place
not in Russia but in New York City on
January 28, 1919. He would mourn his
lost country for the rest of his life.
The sonata-form first movement
begins with a woodwind and brass
fanfare and a bravura descent in double
octaves for the piano. It introduces us to
Rachmaninoff the bold virtuoso, blessed
with enormous hands that matched his
imposing height of 6'5". Then the strings
introduce the first theme: a true Rach-
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maninoff melody saturated with nostalgia
and regret. After a fleet-fingered scherzando passage comes another romantic
theme, also in the violins, with a yearning
half-step-upward resolution. The development section uses both themes extensively.
And in a long, demanding cadenza near
the end of the movement, the soloist gives
the first theme the full treatment in rich,
dense chords.
Rachmaninoff at 18 was
already the spinner of
bittersweet melodies and
master of big musical
gestures that have made him
such an audience favorite.
Movement two is a brief, lovely nocturne in D major. The solo horn and the
woodwinds are prominent here, and
the horn begins with a four-note ascending
motive, out of which the movement is
woven. Dusky orchestral harmonies conjure night. The piano extends the four-note
motive and then launches a long, rhapsodic
melody. Later, the violins sing a variant of
it while the piano shimmers above.
The Scherzo finale received most of
Rachmaninoff’s retooling in 1917. He
gave it a fresh introduction in which
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