<glacius:metadata>

    <title>Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 - A Review</title>

    <description>Review of Rachmanoniff's first piano concerto</description>

    <category>Music</category>

    <category>Classical music</category>

    <series order="2">2022 music project</series>

</glacius:metadata>

<p>

    Rachmaninoff's 2nd<glacius:cite>I like 

    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD5pqlDPCHc">Yuja Wang's interpretation</a> best</glacius:cite> 

    and 3rd<glacius:cite><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcP3UC1fe1w">Arcadi Volodos</a> does 

    a great ossia cadenza, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd9zkD3t_ME">Yuja Wang</a> 

    does a great non-ossia cadenza</glacius:cite> piano concertos get all the love, but what about his

    first? I've listened to it a few times but either it's not very memorable or

    I wasn't paying close enough attention. For my 2nd 

    <glacius:link series="2022 music project" /> I thought

    it would be fun to listen to it more closely. Like it was my school assignment

    to do so.

</p>

<p>

    Sometimes these things sound more fun in my head. But now I'm in too deep, so

    off we go.

</p>

<hr />

<h2>1st Movement</h2>

<p>

    Like most Rachmaninoff and/or late-Romantic pieces, there's a lot of chromatics.

    The main theme is pretty rich harmonically, which I've notated below.

</p>

<glacius:figure glacius:src="rach1-main-theme.png">

    <caption>Main theme of the first movement</caption>

</glacius:figure>

<p>

    Nothing truly crazy, but I thought the modulation progression from F♯m →

    G♯7 → C♯m → D♯7 and then moving backward to C#m by

    way of G♯7 (instead of the more natural G♯m) was neat. And then using

    the G♯ as a pedal tone around the Bm6 to eventually resolve to C#7 was also neat.

    It's very satisfying and natural. Kinda reminiscient of the third concerto (or

    vice versa, I guess) with a simple main theme with some meandering chromatics and

    then eventually resolving to V7 - i.

</p>

<p>

    Another interesting thing I noticed in the first movement was during the cadenza.

    In true Rachmaninoff form, there are lots of notes and block chords, but this cadenza

    features a lot of modulations. Within some of these modulations are references

    to the main theme (as shown above, highlighted in <span style="color: #00ff00">green</span> 

    below):

</p>

<glacius:figure glacius:src="rach1-cadenza-1.png">

    <caption>Main theme callback from the cadenza</caption>

</glacius:figure>

<p>

    However, I don't completely understand the reason for the oddly spelled and seemingly

    out of place F7 chord in the last bar. Obviously the D♭ enharmonic finishes

    the last note of the first measure of the main theme, but I don't even understand

    why Rachmaninoff put an F7 chord under what's clearly an arpeggiated F♯m6

    run (ending with the trill on A).

</p>

<p>

    The only thing I could think of is that a few bars later it changes keys to D♭, 

    so maybe the F7 chord is setting up the (eventual) key change: F7 is the V of

    B♭ minor which is the relative minor of D♭... meh, seems a stretch to me.

</p>

<glacius:figure glacius:src="rach1-cadenza-2.png">

    <caption>Cadenza leading into key change</caption>

</glacius:figure>

<h2>2nd Movement</h2>

<p>

    Another interesting spelling choice:

</p>

<glacius:figure glacius:src="rach1-movement2.png">

    <caption>D&#x266f;m in the right hand and E&#x266d;m in the left</caption>

</glacius:figure>

<p>

    I assume this is just for readability (it might be an editor's choice, since the

    last measure of this example was the first measure after a page turn), but given

    the fact that the left hand switches clefs and still ends up on E♭ makes

    this choice a little puzzling.

</p>

<h2>3rd Movement</h2>

<p>

    The third movement seems a little bipolar. Starts off hot and spicy, in stark

    contrast to the typically slow 2nd movement. Then after a hot-and-spicy

    minute, it slows way down following the most jarring key change transition

    of all time.

</p>

<p>

    This slow section ends the exact same way the 2nd movement ends, just a half-step

    up (E♭ instead of D). Then it's a bunch of frantic and fast-paced, almost

    march-like segments until the coda, and it ends with a flourish.

</p>

<p>

    Overall, not a bad movement, but the transition between the slow and fast parts

    was too extreme and out of left field. But I'm not a legendary virtuoso composer,

    so maybe Rachmaninoff knows better than me.

</p>

<p>

    I did enjoy this brief tremolo that reminded me of the 3rd movement of

    Rachmaninoff's 3rd concerto:

</p>

<glacius:figure glacius:src="rach1-tremolo.png">

    <caption>Brief tremolo from the 1st concerto</caption>

</glacius:figure>

<glacius:figure glacius:src="rach1-rach3-similarity.png">

    <caption>Passage from the 3rd concerto</caption>

</glacius:figure>

<h2>Concluding thoughts</h2>

<p>

    It's a good concerto, but it's pretty clear why the other two are so much more

    famous. Seems like he got out all of the kinks by the time the 2nd concerto

    rolled around, and everything was much more smooth and polished.

</p>

<p>

    If I had to rank the movements, I'd say they go in order from best to worst: 1, 2, 3.

    The 1st movement starts and ends strong, and has a fantastic cadenza. The 2nd movement

    is moving, slow and atmospheric and sets the mood. The 3rd movement starts strong

    but gets weird with tempo changes, key changes and mood changes. Overall they are

    all nice to listen to.

</p>

<p>

    To write this article I listened to a 

    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6EX3t2Mdnw">a performance</a> by

    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Fedorova">Anna Fedorova</a> and followed

    along with the full score. As usual, it made me painfully aware how utterly inept I am at reading

    Alto clef.

</p>

<p>

    As usual, I used <a href="https://lilypond.org/">Lilypond</a> to transcribe the passages 

    used in this article. You can download my (very messy) Lilypond file

    <glacius:link file="rach1.ly">here</glacius:link>.

</p>