Rachmaninoff’s Symphony Number one marks the beginning of his best work for the orchestra. Some people like it. Some people thought he was crazy. He was vastly misunderstood during his time. He is said to be one of the last composers of the late Romantic Period of composers, sort of like the last gasp of Romanticism.
The first melodic movement in D minor opens with epic french horn and trumpet on a solid D with the string section backing them up. From there there’s a dizzying whirlwind of color that makes you sit on the edge of your seat. The whole movement is a whole conquest like that of Star Wars, or someone in search of a mad diamond. The piercing of the brass, the spinning triplet strings, the whizzing woodwinds are enough to get your head spinning. It is such a grand and noble movement. Some great tragedy or conquest is going on or about to come up.
The allegro in F major major is in a seemingly bouncy 3/4 time with lots of juicy diminished chords to make you feel like you’re dangling in oblivion between or on the edge of two different keys. It is a lovely chromatic journey all in all that is not your typical vanilla F major piece. Just the colors of these first two movements keep me going deeper into the texture wanting to find out more. There is a moment where chromatic mediants (bouncing back from a major or minor of one key to a major or minor of the key a third higher from it) is present (a portion of the piece goes from F to D-flat and back again).
The Larghetto (movement III in B-flat) begins with a striking E-flat minor chord with an added sixth that is so evident in the woodwinds and carried through in the strings lovingly. The B-flat tonality seems short lived as the orchestra briefly parks itself in the F tonality with minor glimpses at other nearby keys. Throughout the whole movement, there is a switch between major and parallel minor (B-flat and B-flat minor and back again). This is so common in music of the later Romantic period.
Movement IV (Allegro Con Fuoco) is a march like movement that keeps people risen in spirit to conquer anything. It’s complete with the horns and trumpets doing the horn fifths in the beginning. The movement gallops along like a horse on a swift getaway. This getaway soon goes back to the fantasy-style music that Rachmaninoff is so known for. He gives you the whole ice cream sundae with a dozen cherries on top—it is never enough, but some people, like this reviewer crave such beautiful things.
The richness of this symphony as well as much of Rachmaninoff’s work is almost too beautiful to take in, but it is all for the love of music that such treasures as this exist. Long live the lusciousness of Rachmaninoff’s melodies and harmonies!
