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Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness, dense contrapuntal textures, and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he used his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument.
Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, was composed in the summer of 1909. The piece was premiered on November 28 of that year in New York City with the composer as soloist, accompanied by the New York Symphony Society under Walter Damrosch. The work has the reputation of being one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical piano repertoire.
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. After a period of comparative obscurity in the 25 years immediately after his death, he is now becoming recognized as one of the most significant Russian composers for the piano.
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between June 1900 and April 1901. The piece established his fame as a concerto composer and is one of his most enduringly popular pieces.
Sergei Rachmaninoff's Trio élégiaque No. 2 in D minor, Op. 9 is a piano trio which he began composing on 25 October 1893 and completed on 15 December that year. It was written in memory of Tchaikovsky and was inscribed with the dedication "In Memory of a Great Artist". It was first performed in Moscow on 31 January 1894 by Rachmaninoff himself, the violinist Julius Conus, and the cellist Anatoli Brandukov.
The Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13, is a four-movement composition for orchestra written from January to October 1895 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. He composed it at his Ivanovka estate near Tambov, Russia. Despite its poor initial reception, the symphony is now seen as a dynamic representation of the Russian symphonic tradition, with British composer Robert Simpson calling it "a powerful work in its own right, stemming from Borodin and Tchaikovsky, but convinced, individual, finely constructed, and achieving a genuinely tragic and heroic expression that stands far above the pathos of his later music."
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40, is a major work by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, completed in 1926. The work exists in three versions. Following its unsuccessful premiere, the composer made cuts and other amendments before publishing it in 1928. With continued lack of success, he withdrew the work, eventually revising and republishing it in 1941. The original manuscript version was released in 2000 by the Rachmaninoff Estate to be published and recorded. The work is dedicated to Nikolai Medtner, who in turn dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to Rachmaninoff the following year.
Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in F♯ minor, Op. 1, in 1891, at age 17-18. He dedicated the work to Alexander Siloti. He revised the work thoroughly in 1917.
Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi was a French-born music critic and musicologist of Greek descent who was a British citizen and resident in England from 1914 onwards. He is especially noted for his writings on Russian classical music, particularly on the life and works of Modest Mussorgsky, and his close association with the French musical establishment.
Aleko is the first of three completed operas by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The Russian libretto was written by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and is an adaptation of the 1827 poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin. The opera was written in 1892 as a graduation work at the Moscow Conservatory, and it won the highest prizes from the conservatory judges that year. It was first performed in Moscow on 9 May 1893.
Written in 1917, the Études-Tableaux, Op. 39 is the second set of piano études composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor is a composition for piano, violin and cello by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Isle of the Dead, Op. 29, is a symphonic poem composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, written in the key of A minor. The piece was inspired by a black and white reproduction of Arnold Böcklin's painting Isle of the Dead, which he saw in Paris in 1907. He composed the work from January to March of 1909, and later made numerous revisions to the piece, which included significant cuts.
The Bells, Op. 35, is a choral symphony by Sergei Rachmaninoff, written in 1913 and premiered in St Petersburg on 30 November that year under the composer's baton. The words are from the poem The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe, very freely translated into Russian by the symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont. The traditional Gregorian melody Dies Irae is used frequently throughout the work. It was one of Rachmaninoff's two favorite compositions, along with his All-Night Vigil, and is considered by some to be his secular choral masterpiece. Rachmaninoff called the work both a choral symphony and (unofficially) his Third Symphony shortly after writing it; however, he would later write a purely instrumental Third Symphony at his new villa in Switzerland. Rachmaninoff dedicated The Bells to Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The US Premiere of the work was given by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Chorus on 6 February 1920 and the UK Premiere by Sir Henry Wood and the Liverpool Philharmonic and Chorus on 15 March 1921.
Ten Preludes, Op. 23, is a set of ten preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1901 and 1903. This set includes the famous Prelude in G minor.
Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 28, is a piano sonata by Sergei Rachmaninoff, completed in 1908. It is the first of three "Dresden pieces", along with the Symphony No. 2 and part of an opera, which were composed in the quiet city of Dresden, Germany. It was originally inspired by Goethe's tragic play Faust; although Rachmaninoff abandoned the idea soon after beginning composition, traces of this influence can still be found. After numerous revisions and substantial cuts made at the advice of his colleagues, he completed it on April 11, 1908. Konstantin Igumnov gave the premiere in Moscow on October 17, 1908. It received a lukewarm response there, and remains one of the least performed of Rachmaninoff's works.
George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE was an English music critic and author who specialized in classical music. For nearly two decades he was the chief classical music critic for both The Daily Telegraph (1986–2005) and The Sunday Telegraph (1989–2005). A prolific writer, he was the biographer of many composers and musicians, including Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Barbirolli, Mahler, Strauss, Britten, Boult and Walton. Other notable publications include writings on various musical institutions, the editing of music dictionaries as well as numerous articles for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the subsequent Grove Music Online.
Caprice bohémien, Op. 12, also known as the "Capriccio on Gypsy Themes", is a symphonic poem for orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff from 1892 to 1894.
The Études-Tableaux, Op. 33, is the first of two sets of piano études composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff. They were intended to be "picture pieces", essentially "musical evocations of external visual stimuli". But Rachmaninoff did not disclose what inspired each one, stating: "I do not believe in the artist that discloses too much of his images. Let [the listener] paint for themselves what it most suggests." However, he willingly shared sources for a few of these études with the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi when Respighi orchestrated them in 1930.
References
- 1 2 Kennedy, Michal; Kennedy, Joyce Bourne, eds. (2013) [2007]. "Geoffrey Norris" . The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920383-3 . Retrieved 7 September 2022.
- 1 2 3 4 "Meet The Lecturers: Geoffrey Norris". Miami International Piano Festival. Retrieved 6 September 2022. Original from MiamiPianoFest (Archived)
- ↑ "Professor Geoffrey Norris". Martin Randall Travel. Archived from the original on 7 September 2022. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
- ↑ Norris 1973a.
- ↑ Norris 1973b.
- ↑ Norris 1983.
- ↑ Norris 2001.
- ↑ Norris 1976.
- ↑ Norris & Threlfall 1982.
