Ann Fontanella

20th Century Music

Dr. McKinley
3/14/2011

Listening assignment number 3: Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff was born April 1, 1873 and died March 28, 1943. He was

born in Russia and was a pianist, conductor, and composer. He came to be recognized

as one of the greatest pianists of the century and on the of the last Romantic

composers. Much of his music is characterized by striking melodicism and was also

written for the piano (with orchestra), enabling him to feature his talents as a pianist in

his own music.

Rachmaninoff's parents were both amateur pianists and his mother began to teach him

when he was 4. He was eventually accepted to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and

was apparently a talented composer but rather lazy since he failed most of his classes.

He at first was noted as a composer and one a gold medal for his first piano concerto.

In 1917, he emigrated to the Helsinki and began touring as a pianist. He developed an

interested audience in America and left for New York in 1018. He quickly found an

agent and recording success in his new country. Because his concert career was quite

busy, his output is a composer slowed and found himself functioning largely as a

performer. He fell sick during a tour in 1942 and was diagnosed with melanoma. His last
recital was on February 17th, 1943 and died a month later.

___________________________

I listened to Rubinstein play the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. I bought this off of
Itunes, so the CD number was not available, but it was Volume 35 from the Rubinstein
Collection and he also performed the Piano concerto number 2 on the same album in
1956. It is for orchestra and piano and is based around Paganini's 24th caprice and has
24 variations. It is hard to hear the relationship between the melody and the variations
sometimes, but I thought some of the variations were quite beautiful and clever, the
18th variation particularly (I think it was the tune inverted?). I also thought it was very
interesting that Rachmaninoff places the first variation before the main tune.