This Week in Classical Music: March 27, 2023. Rachmaninov 150. One day of this week is very special: April 1st marks the 150th anniversary of the great Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, Sergei Rachmaninov (some outlets were celebrating his birthday on the 20th of March, as that was his birthdate according to the old Russian Julian calendar, but this is like observing the Russian Revolution on October 25th, rather than the conventional November 7th). We’re not going to trace Rachmaninov’s life; suffice it to say that it was divided into two irreconcilable parts, one, from his birth till the Russian Revolution, and then, from 1918, emigration and life in the United States. In terms of his creative output, these two parts are incomparable. The vast majority of his compositions were created while Rachmaninov lived in Russia: his piano pieces, such as the Études-Tableaux and the Preludes, the first three Piano concertos, two symphonies and Isle of the Dead, the Second piano sonata (the first one was a juvenile piece), the early operas, most of his songs, the choral works, such as The Bells and the All-Night Vigil – all of these were written in Russia. In America Rachmaninov had to earn his living by playing piano and conducting, with very little time left for composing. All he wrote while in America were (not counting several miscellaneous pieces) a not-very-successful Piano Concerto no. 4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphony no. 3, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, and Symphonic Dances. We’ve always wondered if one could explain such a tremendous disparity just by Rachmaninov’s need to earn money by performing. We suspect there was more to it, but this is not the place to address this issue.
That Rachmaninov was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century is accepted by practically everybody. But what about his compositions? He’s one of the most popular composers ever, if one judges by the number of his pieces being performed and broadcasted, the Piano concertos nos. 2 and 3 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in particular. But was he a great composer? Here opinions differ. Clearly, he wasn’t an innovator, but not all great composers were: we recently talked about Bach, whose music was considered outdated by many of his contemporaries. Eric Blom, a famous music critic and the editor of the 5th edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music, was one of the skeptics. He wrote that the composer “did not have the individuality of Taneyev or Medtner. Technically he was highly gifted, but also severely limited. His music is ... monotonous in texture ... The enormous popular success some few of Rakhmaninov's works had in his lifetime is not likely to last, and musicians never regarded it with much favour.” This seems to be both wrong and unfair, and Harold Schonberg, the chief music critic of the New York Times, responded (in his book on great composers) in kind: “It is one of the most outrageously snobbish and even stupid statements ever to be found in a work that is supposed to be an objective reference.” We have to confess that sometimes, listening to somewhat shallow, formulaic passages that appear quite often in many of Rachmaninov’s pieces, we have our doubts. But that’s not the way to judge any creative artist: it should be done by what he did best, and Rachmaninov did write brilliant music. That’s what will keep him in the pantheon of composers of the first half of the 20th century.
Let’s listen to some music.First, Sviatoslav Richter plays two of Rachmaninov’s Etudes-Tableaux op.33: no. 5 and no. 6, but from 1911.And here Richter again, in Prelude no. 10, from op. 32, composed a year earlier, in 1910.And finally, a sample of Rachmaninov’s late symphonic work: from 1940, his Symphonic Dances.Vladimir Ashkenazy leads the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Rachmaninov 150! 2023
This Week in Classical Music: March 27, 2023. Rachmaninov 150. One day of this week is very special: April 1st marks the 150th anniversary of the great Russian composer, pianist, and
conductor, Sergei Rachmaninov (some outlets were celebrating his birthday on the 20th of March, as that was his birthdate according to the old Russian Julian calendar, but this is like observing the Russian Revolution on October 25th, rather than the conventional November 7th). We’re not going to trace Rachmaninov’s life; suffice it to say that it was divided into two irreconcilable parts, one, from his birth till the Russian Revolution, and then, from 1918, emigration and life in the United States. In terms of his creative output, these two parts are incomparable. The vast majority of his compositions were created while Rachmaninov lived in Russia: his piano pieces, such as the Études-Tableaux and the Preludes, the first three Piano concertos, two symphonies and Isle of the Dead, the Second piano sonata (the first one was a juvenile piece), the early operas, most of his songs, the choral works, such as The Bells and the All-Night Vigil – all of these were written in Russia. In America Rachmaninov had to earn his living by playing piano and conducting, with very little time left for composing. All he wrote while in America were (not counting several miscellaneous pieces) a not-very-successful Piano Concerto no. 4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphony no. 3, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, and Symphonic Dances. We’ve always wondered if one could explain such a tremendous disparity just by Rachmaninov’s need to earn money by performing. We suspect there was more to it, but this is not the place to address this issue.
That Rachmaninov was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century is accepted by practically everybody. But what about his compositions? He’s one of the most popular composers ever, if one judges by the number of his pieces being performed and broadcasted, the Piano concertos nos. 2 and 3 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in particular. But was he a great composer? Here opinions differ. Clearly, he wasn’t an innovator, but not all great composers were: we recently talked about Bach, whose music was considered outdated by many of his contemporaries. Eric Blom, a famous music critic and the editor of the 5th edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music, was one of the skeptics. He wrote that the composer “did not have the individuality of Taneyev or Medtner. Technically he was highly gifted, but also severely limited. His music is ... monotonous in texture ... The enormous popular success some few of Rakhmaninov's works had in his lifetime is not likely to last, and musicians never regarded it with much favour.” This seems to be both wrong and unfair, and Harold Schonberg, the chief music critic of the New York Times, responded (in his book on great composers) in kind: “It is one of the most outrageously snobbish and even stupid statements ever to be found in a work that is supposed to be an objective reference.” We have to confess that sometimes, listening to somewhat shallow, formulaic passages that appear quite often in many of Rachmaninov’s pieces, we have our doubts. But that’s not the way to judge any creative artist: it should be done by what he did best, and Rachmaninov did write brilliant music. That’s what will keep him in the pantheon of composers of the first half of the 20th century.
Let’s listen to some music. First, Sviatoslav Richter plays two of Rachmaninov’s Etudes-Tableaux op.33: no. 5 and no. 6, but from 1911. And here Richter again, in Prelude no. 10, from op. 32, composed a year earlier, in 1910. And finally, a sample of Rachmaninov’s late symphonic work: from 1940, his Symphonic Dances. Vladimir Ashkenazy leads the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.