Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rachmaninoff)

The beginning of the opening theme of the Piano Concerto No. 3

The Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 by Sergei Rachmaninoff (colloquially known as the "Rach 3") is famous for its technical and musical demands on the performer. It has the reputation of being one of the most difficult concertos in the entire piano repertoire.

Following the form of a standard concerto, the piece is in three movements:

1. Allegro ma non tanto (D minor)
2. Intermezzo: Adagio (A major/D flat major)
3. Finale: Alla breve (D minor → D major)

The third movement follows the second without pause. A typical performance of the concerto lasts about forty minutes.

Movements

Allegro ma non tanto

A portion of the original cadenza (ossia)

The first movement revolves around a diatonic melody that soon develops into complex pianistic figuration. It reaches a number of ferocious climaxes, especially in the cadenza. The first theme in its full form reappears just before the coda. Rachmaninoff wrote two versions of this cadenza: the dramatic and powerful original, commonly notated as the ossia, and a second one with a lighter, toccata-like style. In his recording of the concerto, the composer used the second cadenza.

Intermezzo: Adagio

The second movement is opened by the orchestra and it consists of a number of variations around a single lush, heavily romantic melody following one another without a rigid scheme. After the development and recapitulation of the second theme, the main melody from the first movement reappears, before the movement is "closed" by the orchestra in a manner similar to the introduction. Then the piano gets the last word in with a short "cadenza-esque" passage which transitions into the last movement without pause. Many melodic thoughts of this movement allude to Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto, third movement, noticeably the Russian-like, E-flat major melody.

Finale: Alla breve

The third movement is quick and vigorous and contains variations on many of the themes that are used in the first movement, which unites the whole concerto cyclically. However, after the first and second themes it diverges from the regular sonata-allegro form. There is no conventional development; that segment is replaced by a lengthy digression using the major key of the third movement's first theme, which then leads to the two themes from the first movement. After the digression, the movement recapitulation returns to the original themes, building up to a toccata climax somewhat similar but lighter than the first movement ossia cadenza. The last movement is concluded with a triumphant and passionate second theme melody in D major. The piece ends with the same four-note rhythm – claimed by some to be the composer's musical signature – as the composer's second concerto.

History

Written in the peaceful setting of his family's country estate, Ivanovka, Rachmaninoff completed the concerto on September 23, 1909. Contemporary with this work are his First Piano Sonata and his tone poem The Isle of the Dead.

The concerto is respected, even feared, by most pianists. Józef Hofmann, the pianist to whom the work is dedicated, never publicly performed it, saying that it "wasn't for" him (though this must have been for reasons other than the work's technical difficulty, since Hofmann was one of the greatest technicians in pianistic history). And Gary Graffman lamented he had not learned this concerto as a student, when he was "still too young to know fear".

Due to time constraints, Rachmaninoff could not practice the piece while in Russia. Instead, he practiced it on a silent keyboard that he took with him on the ship to the US.

The concerto was first performed on November 28, 1909 by Rachmaninoff himself with the now-defunct New York Symphony Society with Walter Damrosch conducting, at the New Theater (later rechristened the Century Theater). It received a second performance under Gustav Mahler several weeks later, an 'experience Rachmaninoff treasured' [1]. The manuscript was first published in 1910 by Gutheil. The first performance in England was given by G T Ball (later Sir George Thalben-Ball) at the Royal College of Music in London.

Performances and recordings

The first recording of the concerto was made by Vladimir Horowitz accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates for the HMV label in 1930. This landmark register has recently been listed by English critic and writer Norman Lebrecht as one of the 100 greatest recordings ever made. Horowitz's rendition of the concerto impressed Rachmaninoff so much that the composer never played it in public again (although he recorded the work in 1939).

Many other famous pianists have recorded the concerto, including Alexis Weissenberg, Yefim Bronfman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Shura Cherkassky, Jorge Bolet, Van Cliburn, Lazar Berman, Walter Gieseking, Emil Gilels, Horacio Gutiérrez Stephen Hough, Byron Janis, Evgeny Kissin, Nikolai Lugansky, Victor Merzhanov, Dimitris Sgouros, Lang Lang, Kirill Gerstein, Howard Shelley, Arcadi Volodos, Alexander Toradze, André Watts, Earl Wild, Zoltán Kocsis, Mikhail Pletnev, Leif Ove Andsnes, Boris Berezovsky, Lilya Zilberstein, David Helfgott and Rachmaninoff himself.

One of the most famous recordings of the piece, known for its speed, is that of Martha Argerich performing live with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Riccardo Chailly.

According to some critics, the most technically astounding Rach 3 ever registered is a live performance by Vladimir Horowitz accompanied by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli, available on an off the air recording made in 1941.

Further reading

• W.R. Anderson: Rachmaninov and his pianoforte concertos. A brief sketch of the composer and his style. London 1947
• Yasser, Joseph (1969), "The Opening Theme of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto and its Liturgical Prototype", Musical Quaterly, LV: 313–328

External links

• Free scores by Piano Concerto No. 3 at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• The Rach 3 recordings page
• Rachmaninoff's Works for Piano and Orchestra An analysis of Rachmaninoff's Works for Piano and Orchestra including the Piano Concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody