Sergei Rachmaninoff

Part I of Essay
Probably the most revered of Rachmaninoff’s compositions is the Second Piano Concerto, a work whose existence is attributed to the auto-suggestion therapy of a Dr. Nicholas Dahl. Rachmaninoff’s need for the good doctor’s services came about in this manner: in 1897, the comp ....

Part II of Essay
.... 27, 1901. It immediately took its place as one of the quintessential romantic showpieces for piano and orchestra, and this in spite of the fact that the solo is often sonically buried in unyielding orchestral textures. There are, to be sure, virtuosic flights aplenty for the piano, and lyrical ones, too, but the work is hardly all the pianist’s show. The Concerto opens with a series of rather ponderous, static, unaccompanied piano chords which lead to the orchestras statement of a sardonic main theme taken by the strings while the keyboar ....