Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
Sergei Rachmaninoff
(b. April 1, 1873 Semyonovo, Russia; d. March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills)
The tour of the United States, his first, for the 1909-10 concert season marked for Rachmaninoff the dividing line between the life he had known and the one he was entering. He was deeply Russian and quickly homesick when he was away, but the Russia he remembered was vanishing and he knew it. Already he had had to temporarily move his family to Dresden in 1906 because of the growing turmoil at home.
The 26 US appearances Rachmaninoff made in 1909-10 made him a star here and, despite not having many happy memories of the time, it was very much a financial success—a fact not lost on him.
Concerto No. 3 was composed expressly for his inaugural US tour. It is a colossally challenging work whose difficulties passed into popular culture with the memorable film Shine that tells the true story of Australian David Helfgott, a piano student at the Royal College of Music in London. Helfgott eventually learned and delivered a prize-winning performance of “Rach 3” at the cost of his sanity.
Rachmaninoff himself, however, was not taxed. Not only did he master his concerto on a silent keyboard while crossing the Atlantic, he even allowed, “I much prefer the Third, because my Second is so uncomfortable to play.”
He dedicated Concerto No. 3 to virtuoso Joseph Hofmann who declined to even attempt it and, until Vladimir Horowitz tackled it in the late 20s, it was Rachmaninoff’s alone, a happy circumstance for him because it was enormously popular from the beginning.
The orchestra sounds like it inhales and exhales a few times; the piano enters. It sounds so easy and it is!—a simple melody remarkably like the Russian Orthodox chant, “Thy tomb, O Savior, Soldiers Guarding.” Rachmaninoff denied any borrowing, but he also said of his tune, “It wrote itself,” so an unconscious association is certainly possible.
When simple is done the fearsome difficulty begins—not because any specific passage is beyond a fine pianist’s ability but because it is so relentless and prolonged. Except when the opening theme returns there is nothing easy and the piano plays almost all the time, more than the orchestra, in fact. An enormous cadenza comes near the end of the first movement. Perhaps sensing that the audience might be taking too many punches, Rachmaninoff rewrote the cadenza after the first performances. The original is all crashing chords and the replacement is like a toccata, fleet afoot at the beginning. Both versions are still played. Respecting what is to come, the end is gentle and undramatic.
“Intermezzo” describes the start of the Adagio well, but when the piano barges in, it becomes a more fantastical adventure, surging and retreating, until the orchestra part of the opening returns. A surprise is in store, however, when the piano begins a bravura transition that leads directly into the finale.
It is perhaps enough simply to be dazzled by the inventive turns and spectacular virtuosity. Look deeper, though, and find a great deal of reusing what has come before, finally even subtly inserting the hymn from the concerto’s beginning. The very end wants us to remember his second concerto and the final landing, tum-ta-ta-tum, is like a signature that ends several of his pieces.
Take a deep breath now. Rachmaninoff, the great Russian composer, relied on his freakish pianistic ability as just one part of crafting a beautifully integrated amalgam of piano and orchestra. Let the memory linger of the masterly, magnificent music that was made.
When Rachmaninoff returned to Russia after the tour, he tried to resume a normal life but as WWI was roiling Europe, tsarist Russia was also unraveling. His beloved estate was occupied by a revolutionary splinter group and eventually confiscated by the Communists. Finally he and his family left Russia for good in December 1917 and arrived in the United States on November 12, 1918, his adopted country for the rest of his life.
There is an important Rachmaninoff connection to Tennessee. Rachmaninoff's career came to an end with a recital 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. He felt so weak after that evening, he canceled the rest of his tour and, against the advice of his doctors, planned to go directly back to his home in Beverly Hills. Reaching Beverly Hills, he was taken instead to the hospital where the aggressive melanoma that was killing him was finally diagnosed. His medical team recognized there was nothing more they could do for him and sent him home to be cared for in his last days by his wife, daughter, and Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., a Russian-born Hollywood actor and friend of the family. Rachmaninoff is interred in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, upstate New York, even though his will asked to be buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, the final resting place of eminent Russians, including Scriabin, Taneyev, and Chekhov. Currently a decision to exhume and reinter him rests with his grandson and heir Alexandre Rachmaninoff-Conus.
(c)2013, 2024, 2025 by Steven Hollingsworth,
Creative Commons Public Attribution 3.0 United States License
Contact: steve@trecorde.net
