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Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff
(b. April 1, 1873 Semyonovo, Russia; d. March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills)

The chaos of the October Revolution made Rachmaninoff fearful for his own and his family’s safety. He gratefully accepted an invitation to do a series of concerts across Scandinavia and used it to flee to the safety of the west in December 1917 even though it meant abandoning his property and having to prevail on friends to help get reestablished.

As much as he loved composing, his meal ticket was concertizing. What little composing he managed was difficult because of his demanding performance schedule, recurring health problems, and because he was deeply homesick. He survived, drawing on the large body of his own work composed back in Russia that solidified his reputation as both composer and pianist, but in the rest of his life he only completed six more original works.

With the rest of the world in the throes of the Great Depression, Rachmaninoff finally found stability when he built a family home beside Lake Lucerne in the 1930s. It was there in 1934 he welcomed “working literally from morn to night” as inspiration overtook him. Like Liszt and Brahms before him, he was smitten with the possibilities of the tuneful theme of Paganini’s Caprice in A minor. More than either of them he understood and was ready to exploit the extramusical associations. He knew his history. Paganini had been refused a Catholic burial because his virtuosity on the violin was suspected to have come from a pact with the Devil, a notion supported by his odd name (Paganini==”little pagan”), how gaunt he looked, and his well-documented womanizing.

Rachmaninoff used Dies Irae (day of wrath) from the requiem mass in his own works, for example, Isle of the Dead from 1909. That snippet of music and Paganini’s theme each could be a variation of the other. He had all the material he needed and went to work, completing the score in less than seven weeks. He was the soloist that November in Baltimore, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting. 

Rachmaninoff begins with a trick borrowed from Beethoven. What we hear first is a punchy introduction. What we hear next is the first variation. The finale of Beethoven's Eroica symphony is a theme and variations that doesn't present the theme until well into the movement.

The overarching form of the piece is like a typical concerto. A question to ponder: Why didn't Rachmaninoff call it a concerto? The beginning through variation 10 is like a typical concerto's opening movement, relatively quick tempos, etc. In Variation 7 the piano plays Dies Irae while the orchestra plays a modification of the Paganini theme underneath. Did Rachmaninoff call his work a rhapsody because he borrowed other material?

Variations 11-18 as a group are like a concerto's slow movement. Some of the piano writing seems rather dreamy and rhapsodical. Variation 18 is arguably the most famous piece for piano and orchestra ever written. The lush romantic theme has been borrowed to sell every product under the sun. Yet its relation to Paganini isn't obvious because it is his melody inverted, that is, when Paganini's goes up, Rachmaninoff's goes down and vice versa. Did Rachmaninoff want to call it a rhapsody because it sounded so different from the source material?

The last variations 19-24 are quick again. Much bravura piano playing with some quirky rhythmic twists, jazzy interjections from the brass, a bright Hollywood-like orchestration—now we get it! The rhapsody part looks back less than a decade to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. A last mighty invocation of Dies Irae and the piece is over with a nonchalant fillip.

A reward for readers who have read this far: Rachmaninoff let Michel Fokine know in 1914 of his interest in collaborating with him. Fast forward to Fokine’s visit to Rachmaninoff’s estate in Switzerland in 1937, Rachmaninoff clearly had his Rhapsody in mind as suitable material for a ballet and proposed the subject to Fokine: “Tonight I dreamed of a subject, and here is what came in my head: I give only the main characteristics, the details are still in shadow for me. Might one not depict the legend of Paganini, selling his soul to the Devil for the perfection of art, and also for a woman?”

Fokine used a number of Rachmaninoff’s ideas as he created his ballet Paganini that was first performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, in 1939. Rachmaninoff seemed gleeful, signing his last letter to Fokine, “from a ‘ballet composer’,” and expressing hope for future collaborations.

Tennesseans may want to know that Rachmaninoff's career came to an end up I-75 at UT-Knoxville, February 17, 1943. A 12-foot bronze statue titled “Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert” is on the grounds outside the World's Fair Convention Center.

(c)2013, 2024 by Steven Hollingsworth,
Creative Commons Public Attribution 3.0 United States License
Contact steve@trecorde.net


Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff
(b. April 1, 1873 Semyonovo, Russia; d. March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills)

The chaos of the October Revolution made Rachmaninoff fearful for his own and his family’s safety. He gratefully accepted an invitation to do a series of concerts across Scandinavia and used it to flee to the safety of the west in December 1917 even though it meant abandoning his property and having to prevail on friends to help get reestablished.

As much as he loved composing, his meal ticket was concertizing. What little composing he managed was difficult because of his demanding performance schedule, recurring health problems, and because he was deeply homesick. He survived, drawing on the large body of his own work composed back in Russia that solidified his reputation as both composer and pianist, but in the rest of his life he only completed six more original works.

With the rest of the world in the throes of the Great Depression, Rachmaninoff finally found stability when he built a family home beside Lake Lucerne in the 1930s. It was there in 1934 he welcomed “working literally from morn to night” as inspiration overtook him. Like Liszt and Brahms before him, he was smitten with the possibilities of the tuneful theme of Paganini’s Caprice in A minor. More than either of them he understood and was ready to exploit the extramusical associations. He knew his history. Paganini had been refused a Catholic burial because his virtuosity on the violin was suspected to have come from a pact with the Devil, a notion supported by his odd name (Paganini==”little pagan”), how gaunt he looked, and his well-documented womanizing.

Rachmaninoff used Dies Irae (day of wrath) from the requiem mass in his own works, for example, Isle of the Dead from 1909. That snippet of music and Paganini’s theme each could be a variation of the other. He had all the material he needed and went to work, completing the score in less than seven weeks. He was the soloist that November in Baltimore, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting. 

Rachmaninoff begins with a trick borrowed from Beethoven. What we hear first is a punchy introduction. What we hear next is the first variation. The finale of Beethoven's Eroica symphony is a theme and variations that doesn't present the theme until well into the movement.

The overarching form of the piece is like a typical concerto. A question to ponder: Why didn't Rachmaninoff call it a concerto? The beginning through variation 10 is like a typical concerto's opening movement, relatively quick tempos, etc. In Variation 7 the piano plays Dies Irae while the orchestra plays a modification of the Paganini theme underneath. Did Rachmaninoff call his work a rhapsody because he borrowed other material?

Variations 11-18 as a group are like a concerto's slow movement. Some of the piano writing seems rather dreamy and rhapsodical. Variation 18 is arguably the most famous piece for piano and orchestra ever written. The lush romantic theme has been borrowed to sell every product under the sun. Yet its relation to Paganini isn't obvious because it is his melody inverted, that is, when Paganini's goes up, Rachmaninoff's goes down and vice versa. Did Rachmaninoff want to call it a rhapsody because it sounded so different from the source material?

The last variations 19-24 are quick again. Much bravura piano playing with some quirky rhythmic twists, jazzy interjections from the brass, a bright Hollywood-like orchestration—now we get it! The rhapsody part looks back less than a decade to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. A last mighty invocation of Dies Irae and the piece is over with a nonchalant fillip.

A reward for readers who have read this far: Rachmaninoff let Michel Fokine know in 1914 of his interest in collaborating with him. Fast forward to Fokine’s visit to Rachmaninoff’s estate in Switzerland in 1937, Rachmaninoff clearly had his Rhapsody in mind as suitable material for a ballet and proposed the subject to Fokine: “Tonight I dreamed of a subject, and here is what came in my head: I give only the main characteristics, the details are still in shadow for me. Might one not depict the legend of Paganini, selling his soul to the Devil for the perfection of art, and also for a woman?”

Fokine used a number of Rachmaninoff’s ideas as he created his ballet Paganini that was first performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, in 1939. Rachmaninoff seemed gleeful, signing his last letter to Fokine, “from a ‘ballet composer’,” and expressing hope for future collaborations.

Tennesseans may want to know that Rachmaninoff's career came to an end up I-75 at UT-Knoxville, February 17, 1943. A 12-foot bronze statue titled “Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert” is on the grounds outside the World's Fair Convention Center.

(c)2013, 2024 by Steven Hollingsworth,
Creative Commons Public Attribution 3.0 United States License
Contact steve@trecorde.net