Rachmaninoff Mahler Trpčeski Petrenko

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In the spring of 1897, the soon to be 24-year-old Serge Rachmaninov (1873-1943) was a rising star as a pianist and composer in his native Russia. The premiere of his first symphony in St. Petersburg promised to be a new step towards new heights. But the world premiere ended in scandal: the conductor, the famous composer Alexander Glazunov, delivered a disastrous performance, and a frustrated Rachmaninov left the concert before it was over.

Although it was evident that the conductor had harmed the musical experience (some even maintained that he had been drunk on the podium), the critics did not show much mercy. The composer Cesar Cui was the most extreme: he compared the symphony with the Ten Plagues of Egypt and claimed that in the best of circumstances it would garner admiration only in a music conservatory in Hell. Rachmaninov was completely crushed after this critical mauling, fell into a deep depression and hardly managed to produce any more music in the next three years.

This creative paralysis also affected his personal finances and worried those close to him, who made him seek out the doctor Nikolai Dahl. The doctor was an eager amateur musician himself and naturally saw the value in freeing the composer from his writer’s block. Dahl was one of the first to employ hypnotherapy, and the two met daily for three months. Rachmaninov described later how he in a half-sleep heard his therapist repeat uplifting sentences about how he would succeed in writing a superb piano concerto.

And he really did succeed - Rachmaninov claimed later that Dahl’s treatment strengthened his nervous system miraculously, and that his creative spark returned. In December 1900 he performed two of the movements of his second piano concerto, and in the following year a complete version. The concert was an enormous success, established its creator as a composer on an international scale, and remains a highlight and audience favourite in its genre. Rachmaninov dedicated the concerto to his invaluable therapist Dr. Dahl.

The concerto’s first movement grabs the attention powerfully; the piano strikes up a somewhat dark and mysterious mood with its opening chords before the orchestra enters with an intense and riveting melody from the strings. The effect is reminiscent of the beginning of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto, a composer much admired by Rachmaninov. The piano almost accompanies the orchestra at the start, before it takes up the main role in a side theme in E flat-major. In the second movement a flute solo presents the main theme, and going forwards the melody moves interchangeably between the piano and other instruments. The interplay between the soloist and the orchestra is uncommonly finely woven and might remind one of chamber music. In the third movement the energetic introduction is followed with one of Rachmaninov’s most famous melodies, which is also the foundation for the Sinatra classic “Full Moon and Empty Arms” from 1945