Utah Symphony

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, strings.

Duration: 39 minutes in three movements.

THE COMPOSER – SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) – Rachmaninoff introduced his brand new 3rd Piano Concerto on his first American tour in 1909, a trip he had been extremely anxious about in theory and hated nearly every minute of in practice. The two New York performances were both successful but the second iteration under Gustav Mahler was the sole highlight for Rachmaninoff, who reportedly thought very highly of the Austrian maestro and his New York Philharmonic.       

THE MUSIC – The Concerto was composed during a peaceful 1909 summer of productivity at his family estate Ivanovka. Among the other important works he produced there during some recent previous visits were the 2nd Symphony, The Isle of the Dead and the 1st Piano Sonata. It is interesting that this favorite creative setting would be linked through the 3rd Concerto with the unpleasant United States experience. In one of fate’s great ironic insults they would be linked again later by the Russian Revolution, an event that would destroy Rachmaninoff’s beloved Ivanovka and necessitate his eventual emigration to, of all places, America. The music of the piece is free of this history of course and though it took a few decades for the 3rd Concerto to approach the popularity of the 2nd, it was clear from the start that Rachmaninoff was treading even more fertile ground as a composer. Aside from the soon-to-be-famous difficulties of the solo writing (much more demanding than the 2nd), the structure and craft of the whole indicate that he was asking quite a bit more of himself as a composer too. Regarding the Olympian virtuosity required of the pianist, Rachmaninoff’s own judgment is baffling. With an opinion that must still find very little support among professional pianists, he held the paradoxical view that the 3rd was “more comfortable” than the 2nd.  Maybe for him, but it is possibly more telling that Josef Hofmann, the work’s dedicatee, never did perform it.          

THE WORLD – The city of Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Joan of Arc was beatified by Rome. Also in 1909, Ernest Shackleton claimed the South Magnetic Pole and British Petroleum had its beginnings as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

THE CONNECTION – Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto has been performed twice in the last seven years, both times under Keith Lockhart and most recently in 2010 with Yeol Eum Son.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, strings

Duration: 33 minutes in three movements.

THE COMPOSER – SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) – The 1897 premiere of Rachmaninoff’s 1st Symphony was a disaster. By one account the conductor (Alexander Glazunov) was intoxicated but by all accounts he was truly awful on the podium. The failure threw Rachmaninoff into a deep depression that resulted in a three-year compositional drought. The turn of the century found him splitting time between piano performance and opera conducting. Thankfully, his friends pressed him to cure his writer’s block.  

THE MUSIC – Rachmaninoff’s most enduring masterpiece is the 2nd Piano Concerto, a work that might never have been written if not for the interventions of Dr. Nikolai Dahl. Dahl was a Moscow physician and amateur chamber musician who had an interest in hypnosis therapy. The existence of that particular interest has led to some rather wild conjecture regarding the nature of his “treatment” of Rachmaninoff’s malaise. The two men began meeting daily in early 1900 and though it is tempting to imagine the composer drawn out of his depression under the spell of a pendulating pocket watch, it is much more likely that the highly cultured doctor cured Rachmaninoff with a generous blend of conversation and positive suggestion. However he did it, Dahl’s efforts worked. Rachmaninoff began to sleep better, eat more, drink less and, most importantly, compose again. The project that would benefit first from this restored confidence was the 2nd Piano Concerto, which would be appropriately dedicated to “Monsieur N. Dahl.” The second and third movements of the new concerto were finished later that same year and performed to great success in Moscow. This was an important moment, as Rachmaninoff’s newly bolstered self-image probably still had an element of fragility to it. He need not have worried. As the reception in Moscow proved, he was onto something special with the 2nd Concerto. It was a lush, agreeable and instantly popular declaration of Rachmaninoff’s maturing voice. He completed the piece in 1901.  

THE WORLD – 1901 also saw the first Nobel Prize ceremony in Sweden, the death of Queen Victoria in Britain, the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia and the assassination U.S. President William McKinley. Other premieres included Mahler’s 4th Symphony and Bruckner’s 6th.

THE CONNECTION – The 2nd Concerto is Rachmaninoff’s most frequently programmed work. Utah Symphony last performed it in 2009 with Thomas Wilkins on the podium and Jon Kimura Parker as soloist.