Composer: born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Starorusky District, Russia; died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, CA
Work composed: 1908-09. Dedicated to pianist Josef Hofmann.
World premiere: November 28, 1909, with Rachmaninoff at the piano, under the direction of Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony.

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

Estimated duration: 44 minutes

Sergei Rachmaninoff began working on the Third Piano Concerto in the summer of 1908 at his family’s estate at Oneg, and rushed to complete it in time for his first tour of North America, in the fall of 1909. On the voyage to the United States, Rachmaninoff had no access to a piano, so he took along a cardboard keyboard to practice and memorize the demanding solo part.

After the premiere, and a second performance in New York led by Gustav Mahler, Rachmaninoff arrived in Boston. He made such a magnificent impression that he was asked to assume the post of Music Director for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, an offer he declined. Despite his success, Rachmaninoff heartily disliked America. In a letter to his cousin Rachmaninoff wrote, “In this accursed country you’re surrounded by nothing but Americans and their ‘business,’ ‘business’ they are forever doing, clutching you from all sides and driving you on. Everyone is nice and kind to me, but I am horribly bored by the whole thing, and I feel that my character has been quite ruined here.” Lonely and homesick, Rachmaninoff returned to Russia in February 1910. 

The extraordinary virtuosic and musical demands of the Third Concerto make it one the most challenging works in the repertoire. The soloist plays almost constantly throughout, and must combine ear-popping virtuosity with a chamber musician’s collaborative ability to listen and blend into the orchestra.

When Rachmaninoff discussed the thematic origins of the Third Concerto, he denied any specific influences. “It is borrowed neither from folk song forms nor from church services. It simply ‘wrote itself,’” he stated about the primary melody, in which the pianist enters, subdued, underneath the orchestra. “If I had any plan in composing this theme, I was thinking only of sound. I wanted to ‘sing’ the melody on the piano, as a singer would sing it – and to find a suitable orchestral accompaniment, or rather one that would not muffle this singing.” Rachmaninoff no doubt sincerely believed the theme was his creation, but every composer’s music derives from a collection of influences assimilated, often unconsciously, over the course of a lifetime. With regard to the melody in question, scholars have found strikingly similar music in monastic chants from the Russian Orthodox liturgy. which Rachmaninoff heard regularly as a child.

The Intermezzo and Finale are played without pause, an abrupt transition from the reflective melancholy of the second movement to the ferocious virtuosity of the Finale.