Now, this is what I call decent piano and orchestra music! I am so into the top level of skill and proximity of value of this piece that I want to start writing music like this. In typical Rachmaninoff fashion, he makes a musical hot fudge sundae with two cherries on top. It swerves as if it’s temptation going up and across a winding road. Visually, it is so stunning to watch the orchestra and the piano player go head to head like in a fabulous battle that is taking place. The tempos go from an andante or andantino to allegro and dipping back down to slower tempos. The performance that I watched was very delectable. It was with the pianist Olga Kern. Just watching her fingers fly across the keys causes the listener to want to be in that atmosphere forever. To go to a concert where this was on the program would have been such a treat.
There is a fair amount of chromaticism, but the piece never loses its sweet, decadent and thick harmonies that leave you longing for more. There is a section in G minor with the piano making stabs in the dark, piercing textures everywhere while the strings make these heavenly tremolos. Then come the scary chromaticism again that ultimately lead to the piano playing Rachmaninoff’s beginning theme first played in the strings. This slamming piano climax begs for attention. Top it all off with continuous sweeps of chromaticism again from the piano. Somehow the composer weaves the texture into a sort of E-flat major tonality and then it’s back to the home key.
In the next movement or section, the strings well tears in the eyes of their audiences, especially those who may be depressed. It just goes to show that the depressed musician can write the greatest music from his or her greatest challenges. The greatest music flows from a depressed soul. There are some excellently executed piano solo cadenzas here that are punctuated by strings in echoey shadows. It just oozes beauty and brilliance. The whole piece is a beautiful wish and a prayer to be somewhere else.
The harmonic structure and flow is not your everyday, vanilla structure and the sound is just gorgeous. It’s something I could listen to forever. It is true that Rachmaninoff was the last gasps of the late Romantic period because he just knows how to pull out all the stops, including a beautiful brass harmonic section late in the second movement. The beauty of everything in the piece is beyond words.
