Sergey Rachmaninoff
Piano Concerto No. 2

Sergey Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto is so well-known and beloved today, it’s surprising to realize that at the time he contemplated writing it, he very nearly gave up on it — and on composing altogether.

Noted early as a talented pianist, Rachmaninoff studied at the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories of Music, and won the latter institution’s gold medal in composition for his opera, Aleko (1892). Rachmaninoff premiered his Symphony No. 1 in 1897, with composer Alexander Glazunov at the podium. Unfortunately, the orchestra was not well-prepared and Glazunov was not able to do the work justice — either from incompetence or a fit of alcoholic stupor, depending on which history you read. But whatever its cause, that failure resulted in a series of scathing reviews, led by composer and critic César Cui, who suggested the work could have taken first prize at a “conservatory in hell.”

Rachmaninoff was so disheartened, he could not bring himself to sit at piece of blank composition paper for two years. To add to his personal crisis, when he visited writer Leo Tolstoy in January 1900, Tolstoy listened to Rachmaninoff play the piano and asked, “is such music needed by anybody?” (Tolstoy’s musical taste was undoubtedly questionable; he also told Rachmaninoff that “Beethoven is nonsense.”)

Rachmaninoff’s cousins, seeing him depressed and drinking too much, talked him into visiting Dr. Nicolai Dahl, a specialist in the new field of “neuropsychotherapy” who had an interest in hypnosis. Dahl was also an amateur cellist and violist who performed in a string quartet. Between the doctor’s gentle hypnotic suggestions (“you will begin your concerto,” “the concerto will be excellent”) and his pleasant conversations about music, Rachmaninoff found his depression lifting, and he traveled to the Crimea and Italy, where he made sketches for the new concerto.

He completed the second and third movements in the fall of 1900 and performed them to acclaim in Moscow in December. The first movement was finished in May of 1901, and Rachmaninoff performed as soloist at the complete work’s premiere in Moscow on November 9, with his cousin and teacher Alexander Siloti conducting. Unlike the earlier symphony, this work was met with great praise, and Rachmaninoff’s confidence was restored.

To hear the piece, one would not imagine the composer had
any doubts. From the opening of the Moderato, with its series of powerful, crescendoing chords from the piano, the concerto strikes one as “effortless in its unfolding,” as musicologist Michael Steinberg writes. The piano, having asserted itself at the outset, now becomes an ensemble partner, allowing the strings and clarinets to declare the expressive opening theme. The solo instrument does not come to the fore again until it introduces the longing second theme, in E-flat. The development is first lyrical, then heroic, leading to a marching reprise of the opening theme and a vigorous coda — but no solo cadenzas, yet.

Instead, the second movement (Adagio sostenuto) finds the piano once again accompanist, this time to flute and then clarinet as they voice the lyrical main theme over the piano’s arpeggios. Eventually the tables are turned, and the clarinet and strings provide the arpeggio background to the piano’s solo. The movement segues to a brisk scherzo, when the piano is finally allowed its cadenza, then all returns to serenity.

The brilliant piano passages and martial brass and percussion of the third movement (Allegro scherzando) are counterbalanced by yet another longing, romantic theme, first heard in the violas and oboe. This tune proved so popular that forty years later “big band vandals” (as commentator Roger Dettmer puts it) stole the tune, gave it words, and performed it “unrelentingly” as “Full Moon and Empty Arms.” The stirring final climax, with its maestoso restatement of the romantic theme and pianistic fireworks, is a sure-fire crowd pleaser. Like Rachmaninoff, who dedicated the piece “à Monsieur N. Dahl,” we are in debt to the man who helped the composer bring this work to life.