Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 01/01/2010, uploaded on 01/18/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Born on April 1, 1873 in Oneg, Russia, pianist, conductor, and composer Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff serves as a seminal figure in the late romantic piano repertoire. His oeuvres are original, mystic, and emotionally powerful, and embody the essence of Russian music exploiting ancient chants, evocation of bells, and Russian church and folk music.

A work of lyricism and grandeur, his Piano Sonata No.1, Op. 28  consists of three large movements. Among his colleagues presented with a draft of his sonata was pianist and pedagogue Konstantin Igumnov who would later premiere the work in 1908. In response to a series of comments, Rachmaninoff rewrote the reprises in both first and last movements, shortening them fifty and sixty measures respectively. Following the premiere of the sonata, critic Yuli Engel remarked: "The 'peak' of the concert was a new piano composition of Rachmaninoff, performed for the first time on this occasion. This new sonata is musically complex and quite intricate in its pianism. Merely to read it for oneself at the piano, unraveling this tangle of passages, rhythms, harmonies, polyphonic twistings, is no easy matter, even for an accomplished pianist."  Rachmaninoff innovatively extends the capabilities of the piano and the spirit of improvisation, extended sonata form, and references to literary sources prevail throughout the sonata.  Rachmaninoff stated, "at one time I wanted to make a symphony of this sonata, but this seemed impossible because of the purely pianistic style in which it is written."

 - from Rachmaninoff's Integrative Technique and Structural Organization: A Schenkerian Analysis of Allegro Moderato from Piano Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Opus 28.  Christine M. Yoshikawa (D.M.A. Dissertation)