At 20, the young aristocrat Vasily Arkadyevich Rachmaninoff joined one of the most distinguished regiments of the Russian Imperial Guard. Nonetheless, that determination did not stop him from being always ready to have fun. The ebullient Vasily Arkadyevich did not take much time to squander the fortune he had accessed by advantageously marrying an heiress of vast lands. Shortly before leaving the family on the only property that had survived the waste, Vasili Arkadievich – who not by chance had written a polka as a young man – noticed that his son Sergei was sufficiently gifted to start formal musical studies.
In fact, little Sergei had shown his talent at four years accompanying the piano to his maternal grandfather in piano pieces for four hands. Three years later, a specially trained pianist girl from the St. Petersburg Conservatory would be in charge of accompanying the first steps of the future composer, who would finally receive, at his 20, his graduation diploma at the Moscow Conservatory, in 1893.
A young artist
Sergei Rachmaninoff got an early success. As a recent graduate from the Conservatory, he premiered an opera that immediately enjoyed the admiration and support of his countryman Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Four years later, and after a successful tour throughout Russia, Sergei thought he was in a position to address the composition of a symphony, his first symphony. A good idea with bad timing. In its premiere, the symphony was booed by the public and then beaten by critics.
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| Sergei Rachmaninoff, in 1909 (1873 - 1943) |
Rachmaninoff's disappointment was enormous. Seriously fearing for his psychic health, his friends put Sergei in the hands of a famous doctor who by means of autosuggestion and hypnotism managed to get him out of the psychic prostration. After a long treatment, only in 1900, Sergei felt like composing again and started working on his Piano Concerto No 2, anew, for he had already finished the first movement.
A borrowed theme
A well-known critic of the time relates that in those days Rachmaninoff listened to his faithful friend and fellow disciple Nikita Morozov, singing at the piano a beautiful theme of his own. Deeply moved by the beauty of the melody, Sergei confessed to his friend with a great deal of admiration: "Here is a theme of which I would have liked to be an author". Morozov, a lifelong friend, did not hesitate to respond: "Well! ... and if you like it so much, why do not you use it as if it were yours?"
Brimming with gratitude, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff incorporated into the composition he was working on the theme that would finally make him famous. The melody of Morozov is the lyrical song that makes its entrance at minute 24:53 (third movement) of the Piano Concerto No. 2, in this rendering by the Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, accompanied by the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Lorenzo Viotti, in The Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshals' Hall), a monumental loggia on the Odeonsplatz, in Munich.
Piano Concerto No 2, in C minor, opus 18
Dedicated to Dr. Dahl (the doctor who took Sergei out of the depression), the work premiered with the composer as a soloist on 9 November 1901. It is in three movements:
00:00 Moderato
11:22 Adagio sostenuto
23:01 Allegro
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