Program Notes: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

I’m happy to also now provide program notes to the Doctors Orchestra of Houston. They just do a few concerts a year, but they’re an important asset to their community. Many of its members are “physicians, dentists, nurses, medical students, biomedical scientists, social workers and other allied health professionals who have a dedication to music that goes beyond their daily occupations.” A portion of the proceeds from each of its concerts is now donated to charity.

Their upcoming concert includes Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. The work is enormously popular, and I remember first hearing the work from a classic RCA Victor Red Seal recording of Van Cliburn playing it with the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1.

I can’t embed the whole thing, as it’s quite long, but you can enjoy the first ten minutes with Van Cliburn below.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18

Premiered 10/27/1901, Moscow

Rachmaninoff dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to Nikolai Dahl—and for good reason. Rachmaninoff underwent an extended period of depression following the critical rejection of his First Symphony. Dahl, experimenting with hypnosis therapy, helped the composer emerge from his creative funk, and he completed the Second Piano Concerto shortly thereafter. It remains a signature achievement of Rachmaninoff’s catalog, indeed a landmark opus in the vast landscape of Romantic-era piano concerti. Dahl’s contribution to its success, according to the composer, was his hypnosis mantra, “You will begin to write your concerto . . . . You will work with great facility . . . . The concerto will be of an excellent quality . . . .”

Rachmaninoff continued to find success as a composer and performer, notably in his North American tours. He took up residence in New York and made recordings released through a contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company. CDs of Rachmaninoff performing his own works are still in print today.

The work begins with expansive chords in the piano like the tolling of great bells. The piano transitions into a swirling, sweeping accompaniment, over which the strings sing a stirring, syrupy song. After its climax is developed, the piano takes on a solo theme, simply stated. The opening theme returns again majestically in the strings, this time with the piano pounding out a visceral, chordal counter-theme. The second theme follows in a strongly felt passage by the horn over shimmering, barely audible strings. A bolt of electricity sparks the movement’s closing bars.

The second movement begins with an almost intact quote from the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. The piano establishes an arpeggiated figure on which the supple melody is spun out by the woodwinds and echoed in the piano. A prominent feature of the movement is the hemiola (contrasting duple/triple rhythm), so fundamental to Romantic expressiveness. The music begins to build momentum and emerges from its reverie into a blast of sound and a brief cadenza, resolving once more to its opening nocturne. The finale begins with much excitement—the orchestra seeming to experiment with different keys before the piano’s flurried solo establishes the rhythmic tone for much of the movement. An alluring contrasting theme follows, much in the vein of the sensual themes of the two preceding movements. Again, Rachmaninoff produces luxurious and gorgeous writing. A return to the brilliant opening is not far off and is followed in turn by the lush second theme. A somber C-minor section transitions to C major, heralding the sparkling coda.

© Tyler S. Clark

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