Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra was created by Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff in 1909, during one of the most favourable periods in his life, when all his creative doubts had been left behind and the composer was confidently bringing his intentions to life by penning one masterpiece after another. The ancient chants theme, opening the Third Concerto, was Rachmaninov’s ‘lucky find”: there is something indigenously Russian and archaic about this one-voiced tune, as if a story-teller – rhapsode were starting his unhurried narration. “I wanted to ‘sing’ the melody on the piano, as a singer would sing it—and to find a suitable orchestral accompaniment, or rather one that would not muffle this singing.”, said the composer about this piece.
In addition to melodies of incredible beauty, the Third Piano Concerto astounds by the grandiose breadth and monumentality of its richest solo part. Rachmaninoff imbued the piano line to the full, having filled the culminations with “multi-storied” chord layers, the intensity and power of which take the listeners’ breath away. The extraordinary virtuosic and musical demands of the Third Concerto make it one the most challenging works in the piano concerto repertoire, no matter how well-equipped the pianist is. This composition requires not only exceptional technical power, but also the fortitude, allowing the performer to bear the strain from the very first note to the concluding triumphant hymn, praising the victory of those who have overcome all the hurdles.
Natalia Rogudeeva
The Symphonic Dances (1940) was Rachmaninoff’s last major work, composed once he had emigrated to America and three years after his Third Symphony. Initially the work had a somewhat different title – Fantastic Dances – and its three sections were entitled Noon, Twilight and Midnight. In the final version Rachmaninoff changed the titles and abandoned any programme names.
There is much that points to the fact that Symphonic Dances was the composer’s final work. Rachmaninoff was as if looking back, summing up the results of his own creative life. At the close of the first section (set to bell chimes) one can hear the there of the first section of the first movement of the First Symphony which had been defamed at the premiere but which the composer later would not allow to be performed. In the third section one can hear the theme Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”, a medieval Catholic chorale about the Day of Judgement), which can be found in many of Rachmaninoff’s works as an idée fixe and which reaches its climax here. And at the very end the violas and the snare drum reach the culmination with the slightly modified theme of Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost from Blessed Art Thou, O Lord, the ninth part of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, composed in 1915. From the title it follows that there could be a ballet version of the work. In actual fact, Rachmaninoff corresponded with the choreographer Michel Fokine, discussing the possibility of creating a stage version of his final work. Fokine’s death in 1942, however, prevented the idea from ever coming to fruition.
