Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 02/26/2009, uploaded on 02/26/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39 (1916-1917)

Rachmaninov wrote two sets of Etudes-Tableaux. The title "picture-etude" was apparently coined by Rachmaninoff, although this form is not unique to him.

Each piece presents a pianistic problem, in the tradition of the etude. In addition to this, an extra-musical idea is implied, although Rachmaninoff was reluctant to reveal any program associated with the Etudes-Tableaux. He stated "I do not believe in the artist disclosing too much of his images. Let them paint for themselves what it most suggests." Rachmaninoff found the writing of the Etudes-Tableaux very difficult after composing several large-scale master-pieces including the Third Piano Concerto and the Second Symphony. He stated "[They] presented many more problems than a symphony or a concerto... after all, to say what you have to say and say it briefly, lucidly, and without circumlocution is still the most difficult problem facing the creative artist" (Haylock).

The Etudes-Tableaux were the last works Rachmaninoff composed in Russia. Author of Rachmaninoff: His Life and Times, Robert Matthew-Walker writes that they mark the "virtual end of nineteenth-century tradition of virtuoso writings of the great composer-pianists". He further states that Opus 39 is a "hidden set of variations on the composer's idee-fixe, the Dies Irae, parts of the plainchant being quoted directly in all of the nine studies, particularly obvious in the first five".  He adds that in these compositions Rachmaninoff seems to be writing less in the Russian tradition and more in the Central and Eastern European tradition. The entire collection contains a vivid rhythmic life of its own. A different harmonic language including modal harmonies is used and can be compared to that of the Third Concerto.  Rachmaninoff's characteristic writing, at times "virile and commanding, at others subtle and understated is an aspect...which also ensures the immortality of his music" (Matthew-Walker).

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.