Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

[1926, rev. 1941]

Sergei Rachmaninoff established a solid reputation as a composer and conductor in the early years of the 20th century, but it was his virtuosity at the piano that elevated him to international stardom. When the Russian Revolution forced him into exile at the end of 1917, he embraced the lucrative but exhausting business of touring as a virtuoso pianist around the United States and Europe, relegating his composing to the rare breaks in his performing schedule. 

The centerpieces of Rachmaninoff’s repertoire were the three piano concertos he had composed in Russia, including a revision of the early Piano Concerto No. 1 he undertook in 1917. When he carved out a sabbatical from touring in 1925, he used the time in New York and Dresden to fulfill his long-held desire to add a fourth concerto, a work he introduced with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski in 1927. 

In a letter to fellow composer (and the concerto’s dedicatee) Nikolai Medtner, Rachmaninoff expressed misgivings about the concerto’s length, and his concerns were only amplified by poor reviews, like one from a New York critic declaring the work “long-winded, tiresome, unimportant, in places tawdry.” Rachmaninoff made cuts that shaved about ten percent of its length before publishing the score in 1928; that version is being performed in these concerts. He trimmed another ten percent in 1941 for a version that he once again presented with The Philadelphia Orchestra, in what turned out to be the 68-year-old’s last major effort to compose and premiere a new work. 

The Fourth Piano Concerto stands with one foot in the Romantic past, and the other in the forward-looking climate of 1920s experimentation. The first theme from the piano, presented in grand chords, combines swashbuckling virtuosity with free-ranging harmonies voiced in stuttering orchestral accompaniment. Rachmaninoff was often at his most inspired when crafting the lyrical themes that provided contrast, and the opening movement’s example is one of his finest, drawn in liquid textures that recall his old classmate Scriabin, infused with hints of jazz and Broadway sentimentality. Jazz harmonies also spice up the central Largo, proving how Rachmaninoff’s ears remained open to new sounds as the world shifted around him.

The mercurial charm of the finale bears a family resemblance to Rachmaninoff’s other late masterpiece for piano and orchestra, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini from 1934. As in that work, this finale quotes the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”) plainchant, rounding out a lifelong obsession with a fateful church tune that appeared in most of his major compositions.

Solo piano; piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings