Rachmaninoff

[contrapunctus]

Attention!: Please do not argue without giving thoughtful, careful, and unbias consideration of my post.

Also, do not argue unless you have some type of anilytical insight to back your self up.













Imagine this:

A few days ago I was riding in my car listening to Ashkenazy and the London phil. play Rach 2. I was on my way to hear Garrick Ohlosson play Rach 3 with the Memphis symphony orchestra. They also played Vocalise, and for Ohlsson's encore he played Op. 3/2. On my way home I listened to Raphsody on Pag. played by Ashkenazy.

By the time I got home, I was sick of Rachmaninoff. I started to think why and here is my answer:

Rach has a certain flavor that no other composer has. I find that this flavor can get a bit old. Which would suggest that his music is more show (tis very showy) than substance.

[rob47]

I suggest you put a side an hour and a half and listen to his first piano sonata follwed by his 2nd symphony in eminor and you will remember why you love rach.

or just the symphony.

[ryguillian]

I liked Rachmaninoff for about a week and then I got over it... he's just not a terribly important composer, he didn't contribute a whole lot to the world of music... pianistically, he was great, I love some of his recordings, but as a composer he was only so-so... he liked to wear his heart on his sleeve... and was almost like 20th-century regurgitated Chopin (not speaking foul of Frédéric-François, of course)...

[contrapunctus]

I liked Rachmaninoff for about a week and then I got over it... he's just not a terribly important composer, he didn't contribute a whole lot to the world of music... pianistically, he was great, I love some of his recordings, but as a composer he was only so-so... he liked to wear his heart on his sleeve... and was almost like 20th-century regurgitated Chopin (not speaking foul of Frédéric-François, of course)...

agreed

[leahcim]

Please do not argue without giving thoughtful, careful, and unbias consideration of my post.

Good advice. Have you tried before, did it work?

Rach has a certain flavor that no other composer has.

I'd agree, I can tell if such and such a piece I've not heard before is Rach usually.

I find that this flavor can get a bit old.

I accept that you find that. Not much to argue with there.

Which would suggest that his music is more show (tis very showy) than substance.

After giving your post a thoughtful, careful and unbiased consideration, I disagree. However, I can't see any statements of analytical insight you've given to back this statement up?

It's like anyone saying that because they don't like a piece of music after a while it suggests it lacks substance - by which logic, unless you can state some specific characteristic you have that others don't, all music lacks substance from some pov.

Despite that, I suspect that many listen and play Rach over many years and car journeys - and that many find much of substance in it.

Why are they wrong and you right? If it's just opinion, fair enough, but it's hardly worth using the disclaimers as though you've posted some amazing technicoloured argument. We know more about the car than we do Rach's music so far

Unless that's your point? By making an argument without flavour itself you hope to see it grow old quickly?

[chromatickler]

I liked Rachmaninoff for about a week and then I got over it... he's just not a terribly important composer, he didn't contribute a whole lot to the world of music... pianistically, he was great, I love some of his recordings, but as a composer he was only so-so... he liked to wear his heart on his sleeve... and was almost like 20th-century regurgitated Chopin (not speaking foul of Frédéric-François, of course)...

good job on concealing your pedantry, almost

[tompilk]

Please don't say this... i've loved Rachmaninov for about a year or two.

Rach has a certain flavor that no other composer has.

I'd agree, I can tell if such and such a piece I've not heard before is Rach usually.

Same here for most people.
I still love Rach, although I need to listen to something else every now and then...

[sonatainfsharp]

I did a huge paper on Rachy during my undergrade years, but I don't remember much.

Rachy wasn't really a MAJOR composer. He is certainly well known, but he wasn't MAJOR. I also thought he was until I had to do a paper on a minor composer and Rachy was acceptable. The more I looked into the, the more apprent this was.

Everyone loves his music, no argument there. But, he wrote at a time where people were "moving forward" with music (whatever THAT was supposed to mean), but he was still writing in a Romantic style, with a wrong-sounding note here and there.

He holds (or held) the world record for largest hands, so people love to try to play his music. He also experiments with polyrhythms early on and atonality near the end of his life--sort of like his way of "catching up" to the standard of the time (whatever THAT was supposed to mean, too).

I like Rachy a lot, even named a cat after him, but my ears certainly can't take more than one piece at a time from his pen. It would be like listening to an entire book of Bach't WTC in one sitting.

I wouldn't necessarily say his music is more show than substance, but it depends on how much you like the substance.  I like a pizza every now then--like one quite a bit--but not every day.

[cherub_rocker1979]

I think Rachmaninoff gets boring if you only listen to the G minor and C# minor Preludes and the 2nd and 3rd Concerti , etc.  I don't understand why people only listen to these Rachmaninoff pieces.

Listen to Etude-Tableau op. 39 no. 5 in E-flat Minor and tell me that has no substance.

[tompilk]

I think Rachmaninoff gets boring if you only listen to the G minor and C# minor Preludes and the 2nd and 3rd Concerti , etc. I don't understand why people only listen to these Rachmaninoff pieces.

Listen to Etude-Tableau op. 39 no. 5 in E-flat Minor and tell me that has no substance.

I totally agree. This is what I think.

[musicsdarkangel]

Well,

I agree that Rachmaninoff has his own style, and is quite romantic, and Russian.


I am obsessed with his compositions, and to me, he is the composer who is best at writing his heart down on manuscript.


When I listen to the Rhapsody (i'm playing it BTW), I not only think that he made those variations more lyrical than any other who's touched it, but I believe that the orchestral score is the most genius I've ever seen.

Listen to it, and instead of the piano, listen to the backround.  I find it fascinating what he can do texturally.


Yes, I can get sick of Rachmaninoff when I overplay him, but I love his music.

[tompilk]

Yes, I can get sick of Rachmaninoff when I overplay him, but I love his music.

True

[alzado]

Most of what has been written here is probably true, and is admirable in bringing out a number of aspects of the question.

One point no one seems to have made thus far -- Rachmaninoff was a virtuoso performer from an early age.

There is a temptation then, to compose as a showcase for your performance brilliance.  And of course, after he left Russia he toured, playing his own larger works.

In such an instance, then, there can be a susceptibility to write to show one's own technical brilliance . . .  and to thus create "virtuoso vehicles."  The larger concert works like the concertos become brilliant showcases for virtuoso pianists -- but perhaps at a cost in musical appropriateness and quality.  This is a common criticism also leveled against the Tchaikovsky concerto.

It is interesting that Horowitz in his Russian return concerts played some short pieces by Rachmaninoff, such as one of his polkas.  Horowitz over his career played many of the shorter Rachmaninoff efforts, such as for encore pieces.  No one, I think, understood Rachmaninoff's music better than Horowitz.

It may be in the shorter pieces, such as Moments Musical and others, that a truer Rachmaninoff can be seen.

[rachmaninoffismyfav]

What is this heart on the sleeve crap.  If, as a composer you hear beautiful music inside of you and you are able to put that down on paper and convey it to the public, how can one disregard that or denigrate.  He composed the music that he heard inside of him and it was brilliant.  The ending of his third concerto with the big chords and orchestra carrying the melody is not virtuosic or showy or at all.  It is simply the most powerful and beautiful climax in history.  It makes me happy to have ears.  He is the most underrated composer because critics disregard him because he is so well liked.  "If the public likes his music on a grand scale, that must mean that it is deficient in some way."

[rachmaninoffismyfav]

What is this heart on the sleeve crap.  If, as a composer you hear beautiful music inside of you and you are able to put that down on paper and convey it to the public, how can one disregard that or denigrate.  He composed the music that he heard inside of him and it was brilliant.  The ending of his third concerto with the big chords and orchestra carrying the melody is not virtuosic or showy or at all.  It is simply the most powerful and beautiful climax in history.  It makes me happy to have ears.  He is the most underrated composer because critics disregard him because he is so well liked.  "If the public likes his music on a grand scale, that must mean that it is deficient in some way."  I believe that is why he does not get the respect he deserves

[leahcim]

Yeah. You could have posted it once for both ears though

[pita bread]

Rach has a certain flavor that no other composer has. I find that this flavor can get a bit old.

Concurred.

He is the most underrated composer because critics disregard him because he is so well liked.  "If the public likes his music on a grand scale, that must mean that it is deficient in some way."  I believe that is why he does not get the respect he deserves

That's bullshit. He's disregarded because he basically wrote in one style for his whole life (minus the increased chromaticism found in Op. 39 Etudes). He couldn't even leave his sappy romantic melancholy out of his cadenza in the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2.

[phil13]

That's bullshit. He's disregarded because he basically wrote in one style for his whole life (minus the increased chromaticism found in Op. 39 Etudes). He couldn't even leave his sappy romantic melancholy out of his cadenza in the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2.

One style? So did Mozart (minus Requiem), Bach, Chopin (minus his last 6 works), Schubert, and many others. Usually, the people who bridged eras were the only ones who changed styles multiple times (i.e. Beethoven, Scriabin, etc.)

I love Rachmaninoff. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ROMANTICISM OR MELANCHOLY. They are some of the most beautiful things in the whole world, and certainly Rachmaninoff was not the first to use them. (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, etc.)

Phil

[apion]

Rach has a certain flavor that no other composer has. I find that this flavor can get a bit old. Which would suggest that his music is more show (tis very showy) than substance.

With very few exceptions, EVERY COMPOSER becomes "a bit old" upon repeated listening.  Rach is great to listen to a few hours per week .... beyond that, yeah, it gets old.

[sevencircles]

I heard that Rach had surgery so he could reach a 13:th with any hand.

How come he didn´t use that on any of the recordings.

I understand that he rarely composed larger stretches then 10:s since wanted other people to be able to play his works but why didn´t he use fingerings that only he could do when he recorded the works?

Didn´t he like to do stretches when improvising?

I also heard that he practised for over 10 hours a day for the last 25 years of his life.

I can´t hear that when I listen to most of recordings (not from a technical standpoint at least).

[rachmaninoffismyfav]

That's bullshit. He's disregarded because he basically wrote in one style for his whole life (minus the increased chromaticism found in Op. 39 Etudes). He couldn't even leave his sappy romantic melancholy out of his cadenza in the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2.

Please tell me how you define "sappy romantic melancholy".  I am just curious.  Is it a certain chord progression that ticks you off or something else. Please elaborate.