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Monday, June 27, 2005 - 9:15pmSanction this postReply
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Wonderful, wonderful review!

Rachmaninoff has always been my favorite, and his incomparable 3rd Piano Concerto my favorite piece of music. Ever. (In fact, my new bride and I knew we had some soul connection when we discovered that we both felt the same way about it.) The Rhapsody is my second favorite of his work, too: it is the most lighthearted piece of music I know, and like some angel dancing on a cloud, its unforgettable melodies defy all gravity.

Your thoughts about how these might be the inspiration for "Halley's 5th" in Atlas Shrugged are notions I've shared since I was a 19-year-old kid, and was listening to the 3rd Concerto while reading the novel for the first time. The novel and the 3rd are inextricably linked now in my subconscious, and I can't hear those glorious, soaring themes without thinking of scenes and characters from the novel. There's a glorious piano passage in the third movement that sounds like a continuing burst of laughter, with the glittering piano runs tumbling over a hint of minor-key melancholy in the string section, and for the life of me, every time I hear it I can see Francisco d'Anconia.

Thanks for a magnificent review. And please come back here and post frequently.

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Monday, June 27, 2005 - 9:44pmSanction this postReply
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P. S. The most awesome interpretation of the 3rd I've ever heard is Alexis Weissenberg playing with George Pretre and the Chicago Symphony. The recording is from the late 60s, I think, and nothing I've heard before or since even comes close -- not even that of Volodos or Rachmaninoff himself! It's the one that most evokes the scenes of Atlas for me.



Post 2

Monday, June 27, 2005 - 11:23pmSanction this postReply
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Katherine - I'm mortified to think that Rach wasn't listed here. Rest assured there's been much adulation heaped upon him on SOLO over the years, & I am an unabashed worshipper (even have a T-shirt! :-)). I have numerous versions of his major works, & many minor ones, but not the Weissenberg Rach 3 that Robert mentions. My attempts to locate it thus far have been unsuccessful. Having just acquired Weissenberg's Rach 2 & Tchaik 1, I can believe that his Rach 3 is as good as Robert says it is. In any event, thanks so much for the review. Rach rocks. :-)

Linz

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Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - 1:07pmSanction this postReply
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Is it too much of a sin to mention that the 1975 song "All by Myself" by Eric Carmen was based on the music of Rach 2 Adagio?

I actually knew the music to the song, before hearing the concerto. But imagine my delight upon discovering the original.

Also, Rhapsody on a Theme By Paganini is a wonderful piece. 

Again I admit to first becoming acquainted with the famous parts of this piece through Julian Lloyd Webber and elsewhere.  Ah, pop culture :-)

Thanks for this posting this :-)

 


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Post 4

Monday, October 24, 2005 - 9:03pmSanction this postReply
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Marcus Bachler wrote:
Is it too much of a sin to mention that the 1975 song "All by Myself" by Eric Carmen was based on the music of Rach 2 Adagio?
No more so than to mention that a popular song from the mid-20th century, "Full Moon and Empty Arms," was based on the Rach 2 Finale!  :-)
Also, Rhapsody on a Theme By Paganini is a wonderful piece.
Yup, but it's Rhapsody on a Theme ~of~ Paganini. Also, while we're mentioning sinful spin-offs, the lovely 18th variation in this piece was used as the theme for a coffee (Folgers?) commercial back in the 70s (or was it the 60s?). Imagine that!

Roger Bissell, Post-Randian musician-writer


Post 5

Monday, July 30, 2007 - 1:05amSanction this postReply
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We should also note that the aforementioned Eric Carmen recorded another song in the 1970s -- "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" -- the chorus of which was a direct lift from the luscious theme of the slow movement of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony. Again, what's not to like about either of them!

REB


Post 6

Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 3:55pmSanction this postReply
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Though the pieces are very idiosyncratic, and maintain a high level of difficulty, Rachmaninov failed to develop vertical harmonies. Most of his music is horizontal, but if you really want to hear Rachmaninov at his best, listen to his Etudes-Tablaux. I recently performed the Op.39 No.6 at a concert held by the California Chamber Orchestra/Golden Valley Music Society, and the middle sections of the music really show that Rachmaninov did know how to experiment with more musical devices. Doubly-median relationships can found throughout.
As far as the performance/playability of the pieces, the third piano concerto is most bewildering. Rachmaninov had huge hands, and the third movement of the third concerto really exemplifies this. Having played Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto, the Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, and many other difficult piano works, Rachmaninov's third is killer.

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Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 11:13pmSanction this postReply
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I still like Van Cliburn's renditions, next to the master himself, the best - as far as the 2nd and 3rd are concerned...

Post 8

Sunday, December 14, 2008 - 3:53pmSanction this postReply
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Etudes Tableaux 33 / Helene Grimaud



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Post 9

Monday, December 15, 2008 - 7:31amSanction this postReply
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I think of Rachmaninoff as being the Howard Roark of music. 

He had the integrity and independence to compose music that was authentic, original, and soaring, yet based in a romantic pallet.  He did this in an era where the trend was all about attention-getting novelty.  Any composer who wanted a high degree of prestige needed to embrace atonality, serial music, avante-garde experimentation and the like. 

The elite musical establishment of the time, led by Ellsworth Toohey-ish figures, pointed to a musical future that was free from the "constraints" of tonality.  The suggestion was that any composer who didn't follow this trend was either mired in traditions of the past, or was merely trying to please a public who had no conception of the supposedly superior experimental music of the concert hall. 

Rachmaninoff was keenly aware that his music was rejected by these academic power-brokers.  All he would have had to do to win their praise and the Fine Art Seal of Approval would have been to toss off some unintelligible symphony composed of bleeps, blurps, and noise.  He would have been declared a musical pioneer of the future right then and there and gained all the respect that the Peter Keatings of music had already won.  But thankfully he never did. 

Rachmaninoff stayed true to his sense of life, to the highest standards of musical composition as he understood them, and to the idea that music can convey the deepest of emotions. 


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