Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 & Moments Musicaux, Op. 16

Album review

You're going to compose your concerto….You will work with great ease…The concerto will be of excellent quality…” So spoke Dr. Nikolai Dahl, of one of the pioneers of psychiatry in Russia, and in this way he successfully restored Sergey Rachmaninov's concentration during a period of creative despair after the failure of his first Symphony. Later, Rachmaninov himself was to write: “Even though it seems unbelievable, this therapy truly helped me. I was already starting to compose by summer!” Although they were separated by the crisis which interrupted his work, both the second Piano Concerto and the “Moments Musicaux” date from the composer's early period, during which he was active primarily as a composer rather than a pianist. This explains the character of the second Piano Concerto, which partakes of both chamber music and symphony, despite the dazzling virtuosity of the solo piano part. Unlike many of Rachmaninov's other works, the concerto, dedicated in thanks to his doctor, was never revised after the first performance-another indication of the ease and freshness with which Rachmaninov went to work. The formal simplicity (e.g., in the first movement: main theme in the minor, second theme in the relative major, the development section laid out as a large-scale accelerando with gradually increasing dynamics, recapitulation with both themes, although given out with different instrumentation) is just as classically conceived as the choice of tonalities for the three movements (opening and closing movements in C minor, the slow central movement in E major, just as in Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto, except for the introductory modulations), and the balanced alternation between the freely improvisatory, martially strict, and dancelike, as well as between polyphonic and homophonic writing. However, all three movements are in 2/2 time, making the frequent shifts between 2/2 and 3/2 in the third movement all the more refreshing...