Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was an extraordinarily gifted pianist whose hand could span more than twelve piano keys, as well as a composer and conductor. He lived and worked between East and West and between the Late Romanticism of the 19th century and the musical modernism of the first half of the 20th century. At the age of nine, he began his studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. In 1885, he moved to Moscow, where he became a piano pupil of Nikolai Sergeyevich Zverev. Tchaikovsky, Arensky, Siloti, Taneyev, Safonov, and Rubinstein were not merely illustrious names to him, but living personalities whom he knew as friends, acquaintances, and teachers. At the Moscow Conservatory, he completed both piano studies in 1891 and composition studies in 1892. The launch of the young composer’s career was disrupted by a disastrous performance of his First Symphony in St Petersburg in the spring of 1897, which was met with highly negative reviews. Rachmaninoff struggled to recover from the experience. It was not until he sought help from Nikolai Dahl, a Moscow neurologist, psychiatrist, and hypnotist, that he was able to overcome his crisis. With Dahl’s help, Rachmaninoff regained his desire to compose. His breakthrough came with the success of his Second Piano Concerto (1900–1901), followed by invitations for concert tours and engagements at Moscow’s Great Hall and in Dresden.
Rachmaninoff composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 (1909), while at the height of his creative powers and with a tour of the United States in mind. He brought with him one of the most technically demanding piano concertos in the entire classical repertoire, and he was fully aware of the challenge it presented. Following the premiere in New York on 28 November 1909, Rachmaninoff returned to the piano on 16 January 1910 to perform the concerto once again with the New York Symphony Society, this time under the baton of Gustav Mahler. His late-Romantic, virtuosic work, formally and expressively refined, would go on to become renowned for its lyrical melodies, rich harmonies, rhythmic inventiveness, and the exceptional demands it places on coordination between soloist and orchestra. The work, sometimes called “Rach Three”, was dedicated to Józef Hofmann, a pianist of Polish origin, although Hofmann never performed it in public. The first movement (Allegro ma non tanto) is in sonata form and offers a choice of cadenzas: a technically dazzling version, usually referred to as the “ossia,” and a lighter, toccata-like version. The second movement (Intermezzo. Adagio), structured as variations, makes a smooth transition to the Finale (Alla breve), again composed in sonata form with motivic connections to the opening movement. From beginning to end, the soloist never really gets to relax, whether technically or emotionally.
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Sergei Rachmaninoff left Russia with his whole family and never returned. In the decades that followed, he lived in such places as Sweden, Denmark, France, Switzerland, and the United States, dying in California in 1943. He had a complex relationship with his home country: he criticised the Soviet regime, but he was never free of nostalgia for the Russia he had known in earlier years. The Soviet attitude towards Rachmaninoff was no less complicated, ranging from rejection of the work of a reviled émigré to eventual acceptance. Rachmaninoff himself once said: “In my own compositions, no conscious effort has been made to be original, or Romantic, or Nationalistic, or anything else. I write down on paper the music I hear within me, as naturally as possible. I am a Russian composer, and the land of my birth has influenced my temperament, and outlook.” In the 1930s and ’40s, for example, he composed his Symphony No. 3, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and finally in 1940 the Symphonic Dances, Op. 45.
The work amounts to a kind of artistic retrospective: the Symphonic Dances contain deliberate references to motifs from Orthodox plainchant and the Gregorian sequence Dies irae as well as quotes from the composerʼs own First Symphony and his choral work All-Night Vigil. The individual movements of this three-movement suite, effectively a symphony, were associated with times of day—Noon, Twilight, and Midnight—which may also be understood as symbols of the stages of life. The musical roots of the Symphonic Dances date back to 1914–1915, when Rachmaninoff was contemplating a ballet titled The Scythians. He presented his sketches to the dancer and choreographer Mikhail Fokine, who rejected the project. At the very same time, Sergei Prokofiev was exploring the same subject from ancient history. Shortly before this, Igor Stravinsky had made his mark with The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky’s influence can be heard in the insistent, archaic-sounding rhythm at the beginning of the Symphonic Dances. The middle section of the first movement is entrusted to an alto saxophone playing one of Rachmaninoff’s many dreamy melodies. The second movement (Andante con moto) takes the form of a nervous, almost grotesque valse triste, while the finale (Lento assai – Allegro vivace) juxtaposes death and resurrection. Although the composer himself did not comment on the extramusical content of his Symphonic Dances, there is no denying the work’s deeply personal dimension and existential depth.
The premiere took place on 3 January 1941 in Philadelphia with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. The orchestral forces are augmented, particularly in the percussion section, with piano and harp added. Alongside the orchestral score, Rachmaninoff also prepared a version of the Symphonic Dances for two pianos, and he premiered the arrangement with Vladimir Horowitz at a private party in Beverly Hills in August 1942. Incidentally, it was Horowitz’s recording of the Third Piano Concerto that helped establish the work’s special place in the concert repertoire.
