The story of Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony is probably better known than the symphony itself:  the disastrous premiere, the composer’s subsequent depression and writer’s block, the loss and reconstruction of the score could provide material for an entire novel.  If we had to summarize that novel, we would have to evoke the first performance on March 28, 1897, in St. Petersburg, where a 23-year-old prodigy from Moscow presented his largest and most ambitious work to date.  Due to the old rivalry, bordering on open hostility, between the two Russian capitals, we must assume that the cards were stacked against Rachmaninoff from the outset.  The long and complex work was under-rehearsed and poorly understood by the conductor, 32-year-old Alexander Glazunov, himself an emerging star who enjoyed the support of the musical establishment in Petersburg.  (According to some unconfirmed reports, Glazunov was even intoxicated during the performance.)  César Cui, a venerable member of the “Mighty Five,” trashed the piece in his newspaper review.  The fiasco left Rachmaninoff unable to compose for three years; he only recovered his creative powers after undergoing hypnosis treatment under the care of a certain Dr. Dahl.  He eventually rebounded with his Piano Concerto No. 2, which may be seen as the beginning of his artistic maturity.

When Rachmaninoff fled Russia in the wake of the 1917 revolutions, he left the score of the symphony behind, and the music got lost during the tumultuous decades that followed.  Fortunately, the orchestral parts survived, and so the full score could be reconstructed.  The second performance, 48 years after the first, was given in Moscow, on October 17, 1945 (two years after Rachmaninoff’s death), conducted by Alexander Gauk. 

Thus, the world got to know the First Symphony only after becoming familiar with the Second, the Third, and the Symphonic Dances.  In our time, Rachmaninoff often needs to be defended against charges of being a “conservative” and a “belated Romantic,” but in 1897, he was actually too modern for many listeners.  And indeed, only a few years after Tchaikovsky’s death, this young man was definitely striking a new note.  Each of the four movements in this 45-minute symphony contains multiple tempo changes, interruptions and new beginnings that may, at first sight, give the impression of formal incoherence.  Yet this multiplicity of musical characters is counterbalanced by a strong motivic unity.  There are a few short motifs that appear in all four movements and one may trace the transformations of those motifs throughout the entire work. 

The first of these motifs is the so-called gruppetto, in which a long, central note is preceded by three short notes including that same note, surrounded by its upper and lower neighbors.  Another consists of the first few notes of the medieval Dies irae chant, which appears here perhaps for the first time in Rachmaninoff, to dominate much of his later music right up to the end of his career.  In the opening movement, these motifs appear alongside a principal melody of a distinctly Russian flavor, developed in manifold ways in the course of the movement.

Calling the second movement a scherzo doesn’t quite do justice this agitated and mercurial Allegro, whose nervousness is only temporarily calmed by softer, more lyrical passages.

We may notice the emergence of Rachmaninoff’s unmistakable personal voice in the principal melody of the slow movement—a tender, lyrical melody that gradually becomes more animated.  After a central section where the syncopated chords of the four horns create an ominous, menacing atmosphere, we return to the world of dreams with the recapitulation of the lyrical melody.

The last movement begins in grand military style, with an energetic march that later takes on a scherzando character.  Another expansive lyrical melody provides some emotional contrast, but the military march soon returns.  A mellower middle section, in which the meter changes from duple to triple, gradually picks up momentum.  As this section fades out, the military theme and its playful transformation return, as does the lyrical second theme.  A forceful climax develops, and one might easily believe that the piece is over.  But don’t clap too soon, as a powerful stroke of the tam-tam ushers in the slow, solemn coda, at the end of which the opening gruppetto motif is repeated several times, in a dramatic fortissimo, to provide the real conclusion.

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— Peter Laki