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发表于 2024-7-25 13:06:33
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本帖最后由 Reader86 于 2024-7-25 02:07 PM 编辑
Piano Concerto No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born 1873, Semyonovo, Russia
Died 1943, Beverly Hills, California
January 1900, Moscow. The gaunt 24-year-old Sergei Rachmaninoff lies on a couch, repeating a mantra: “You will begin to write your concerto. You will work with the greatest of ease. The concerto will be of excellent quality.”
Rewind three years, to the chaotic premiere of Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony. The orchestra was scrappy, the conductor drunk, the critics savage. Rachmaninoff felt “a paralyzing apathy. Half my days were spent on a couch, sighing over my ruined life.”
Today, he might be diagnosed with clinical depression. Rachmaninoff wrote nothing for three years, but continued to tour as a concert pianist. After a successful London performance, he found himself promising a new piano concerto. “A second and better one.”
Rachmaninoff wasn’t confident he could deliver. Friends recommended a psychiatrist who specialized in hypnotherapy and the repetition of positive mantras. Rachmaninoff responded well to these sessions, and was able to move forward with the new work.
The Second Piano Concerto breathes with the air of Rachmaninoff’s childhood. The concerto opens with evocations of the deep bells of the orthodox church. The orchestra answers with a slow, step-wise chant melody.
In the slow movement we might feel the cooling breeze of Rachmaninoff’s beloved family residence, Ivanovka. “This steppe was like an infinite sea where the waters are actually boundless fields of wheat, rye, oats, stretching from horizon to horizon.”
At Ivanovka, he found happiness, motivation. “The smell of the Earth, mowed rows and blossoms. I could work—and work hard. Every Russian feels strong ties to the soil. Perhaps it comes from an instinctive need for solitude.”
The finale, despite its minor mode, brims with the crackle of electricity. The premiere of this concerto ushered in Rachmaninoff’s most productive period. In the next fifteen years, he would write many of his most beloved works.
First performance: November 9, 1901, Alexander Siloti conducting, with the composer as soloist
First SLSO performance: March 12, 1915, Max Zach conducting, with Ossip Gabrilowitsch as soloist
Most recent SLSO performance: April 15, 2018, David Robertson conducting, with Simon Trpčeski as soloist
Instrumentation: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings
Approximate duration: 33 minutes
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