Judge Dennis Davis
The Romanticism of Sergei Rachmaninoff: Exploring the Second and Third Piano Concertos

Judge Dennis Davis - The Romanticism of Sergei Rachmaninoff: Exploring the Second and Third Piano Concertos

- Hi, Dennis.

• Hi.

• Thrilled to have you back.

• Hi, how are you? Thrilled to have you back with us.

• All right.

• And I’m going to just leave you to start whenever you’re ready, but give it a couple of minutes.

• Yeah, no, I’m ready. It’s, great, yeah.

• All right, thanks.

• Pleasure, pleasure.

• Welcome back, everyone.

• Well, welcome to this session, which I’m going to discuss with you the Rachmaninoff Second and Third Piano Concerto. I decided to do this for a number of reasons, so perhaps let me outline the nature of this lecture upfront. When I spoke to Trudy, there’s some sort of idea that perhaps from time to time, particularly now, one should liven some of the really tough lectures that one gives about various vicissitudes of Jewish history and other such matters with something slightly different, and something uplifting. And I suppose the great romantic Piano Concertos of Rachmaninoff, the Second and Third, do fit within that bill. There are at least two or three other reasons why it seemed to me that if I was going to do something on music, it wouldn’t have been such a terrible idea to discuss with you these particular concertos. And the reason, firstly of course, is as I’ve already prefigured, Rachmaninoff comes at the end, and I’ll amplify on this a little bit more, at the end of a sort of romantic period, flowing right through from Beethoven through Brahms, Chopin, you name it, and he’s, Tchaikovsky, and he’s there at a particular period, in a way, very different to his contemporaries Prokofiev and Shostakovich, who sort of pushed the boundaries of tonal music, he didn’t do that, but he did produce some remarkable music, which we are going to listen to and discuss a little later on during the hour that we are together. There’s also a personal reason for this.

I think, when I thought back on it, that the Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto was one of the first I ever heard as a child. I had a friend in the block of flats that we were staying, my friend David Richardson and his mother had a recording by Julius Katchen, the American pianist, conducted by Georg Solti, if I remember correctly, of the Rachmaninoff’s Second. And remember hearing it a number of times in their apartment and thinking, what a beautiful piece of music it was and how extraordinary that such a piece of music could be composed in this fashion. So for those reasons, I thought, here we go. Now, Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was born at Semyonovo in the district of Starorussky, Russia, on the 1st of April, 1873. He died in Beverly Hills, California on the 28th of March, 1943. I hope I’ve pronounced the Russian words properly. It took me all day to work them out. Much easier to pronounce Beverly Hills, I suppose. And it’s interesting that, and I’ll come back to that little fact that he died in the United States. He was, as I’ve indicated already, perhaps the last of the great Russian romantic composers. He was also, by the way, one of the greatest pianists that ever lived. And we do have, and I will play a little bit later, one of the recordings that he made, they do exist, and certainly many reevaluations of it would put him right up there amongst the greatest of all pianists. And I suppose with Chopin, Liszt and baroque organists like Bach and Telemann, he was also one of music’s great masters of the keyboard and a composer to boot at the same time. It’s arguable that he was no more than an heir of Liszt.

You know, his works demand a sort of speed, fire and brimstone and power rather than the more introspective Chopin. But I leave that to your assessment. If Tchaikovsky was the central and best known of the Russian romantic composers, and if Glinka was perhaps the father figure of all, it was Rachmaninoff who encapsulated this artistic thrust of their music. Right from the time that he was a student in Moscow in Petersburg, he was focused on piano technique and composition, was regarded as a great pianist, as I’ve indicated. And certainly that was true throughout his touring in the United States, where, as I say, he died. But if Glinka and Tchaikovsky, who, as it were, coupled at the total, remained in Russia and died there, 1857 in the case of Glinka, 1893 in the case of Tchaikovsky, he, as I say, sort of lived quite a long time out of his home country and in Beverly Hills and died there in ‘43. It’s interesting to compare him to Igor Stravinsky, who came to United States in '39, became a citizen of the United States. His music somehow took on a totally different context and texture to that of Rachmaninoff, which always reverted back to his Russian heritage. And of course, the hallmark, if you wish, the real kind of characteristic of the music of Rachmaninoff was this virtuosity, and the rich melodies that he produced, rather large intervals, huge sounds, were very much part of the musical vocabulary which he employed throughout his compositions. And so when we think about him today, the Piano Concerto number 2 is regarded by most people, I suppose is probably the most popular, maybe with the Tchaikovsky one, the most popular piano concerto of all time.

The Piano Concerto number 3 doesn’t come far behind for reasons we’ll talk about in second. And those reasons perhaps are right up front is that both of them have been the subject of extraordinary amount of pop culture, particularly the Second Piano Concerto. If you go back to film, for example, just to give you a few illustrations. in 1945 in the film “Brief Encounter”, which David Lean, the famous director, directed the Noël Coward play, Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are these lovers who meet by chance at a railway station in a small English town. They’re both married, they desperately fighting their passions and they’re consciousness because they’re really in love with each other. And what Lean does is to use the Tchaikovskys Second Piano Concerto almost as a metaphor for their true feedings. And of course we find the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto creeping up again in the “September Affair” in 1950. And in Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” in 2010. Pop music has basically employed it. Frank Sinatra’s “Full Moon and Empty Arms” in 1945. Eric Carmen’s “All by Myself” in 1975 are examples thereof. But the one I wanted to show you this evening was of course, was Billy Wilders famous film, “The Seven Year Itch”, which of course has an iconic scene of Marilyn Monroe with a white dress billowing over the subway gate, one of her famous scenes.

Billy Wilder, it’s not regardless his greatest film, but interestingly enough, in this film with Tom Ewell playing the starstruck man whose family had left for the country and who now is confronted by the blond bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, in his apartment, and the scene that I’m about to show you, it’s all about the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto. So Lauren, to whom I’m enormously indebted because without her I would not have been able to do this programme at all. Lauren, thank you so much again. If we could have the first clip.

• Good Old Rachmaninoff, the Second Piano Concerto, never misses.

• You came. I’m so glad.

• Rachmaninoff.

• The Second Piano Concerto.

• It isn’t fair.

• Not fair? Why?

• Every time I hear it, I go to pieces.

• Oh.

• May I sit next to you?

• Please do.

• Shakes me. It quakes me. It makes me feel good simply all over. I don’t know where I am or who I am or what I’m doing. Don’t stop, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. Why did you stop?

• You know why I stopped?

• Why?

• Because… Because now I’m going to take you in my arms and kiss you, very quickly and very hard.

• Okay. Thank you, Lauren. So that’s the use of the Rachmaninoffs Second by Billy Wilder in a particular context with Marilyn Monroe. If I move on to popular culture and the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, well, the film which really made it absolutely famous and certainly must have skyrocketed the sales of the Rachmaninoff 3 was called “Shine”, made in 1996. And I’m quite sure that many of you, if you, you might well have heard of Rachmaninoff Third, you might have had more than one, but I bet you either put it on or went and bought one if you’ve seen the film, which essentially centred so much in relation to the Rachmaninoff 3. And it’s interesting just to talk a little bit about this film, which is obviously more serious film than “The Seven Year Itch” because the film starts in this extraordinary way, with this man coming into a pub and people laughing at him. And then he sits down, it’s the restaurant actually, he sits down in the restaurant and looks in such terrible trouble until he starts to play in the music.

And of course that is the Australian pianist who had the nervous breakdown, David Helfgott, who’s played absolutely magnificently by the then 43 year old Geoffrey Rush. And of course the entire film centres on this incredible relationship, which Helfgott has with, David Helfgott has with his father Peter, who’s played in the film, magnificently by Armin Mueller-Stahl. He’s a Polish Jew. He’s survived the Holocaust. Lost most of his family. Is now in Australia. And he’s desperate to hold his family together. And when Helfgott Jr., David, wants to go to the Royal College of Music, he shouts out, “You’ll destroy your family.” So he really wants to hold on to the family. And so what you’ve got in this film is on the one hand, the son who does go to the Royal College of Music and he’s desperate to play the Rachmaninoff 3, but the kind of tumult of emotion and what happens to him as he performs it, it kind of almost destroys him. And in a sense is part of the breakdown that is documented.

And even if it’s not entirely accurate, it’s really quite remarkable. And the father has a parallel breakdown, because he doesn’t want his son to go, and his son does go to England. And basically here’s a father who had basically been subject to all the terrors of the Holocaust and is desperately tried to hold his family together. And so the film really is on the one hand both the father and the son who kind of almost emotionally divided by the Rachmaninoff 3 Piano Concerto, which was central to the fabric of the film. And I thought because it was so, was such an important, magnificent film in its own way because of the acting of Rush, that perhaps once you just refresh your memory by having a look at the trailer to this remarkable film.

• You stray dog’s back.

• You want me to get rid of him for you?

• Bravo.

• Bravo.

• Encore.

• Sock it to us, Liberace.

• That’s enough. Hey…

• [Narrator] All his life, David had a gift that most would applaud.

• [Man] David could be one of the truly great pianists.

• [Woman] You must be very proud of him.

• As proud as a father can be.

• Some would embrace.

• How would you like to go to a special school in States where music bounces off the walls?

• America.

• [Narrator] And one would ultimately control

• He’s not going to America.

• Please, Daddy, don’t.

• I know David, what is best, because I’m your father. I won’t let anyone destroy this family. If you go you will be punished for the rest of your life.

• You are David Helfgott.

• That’s right. That’s right.

• [Woman] I used to watch you win all those competitions,

• Win some loose some, you can’t lose them all.

• [Woman] Someone here to see you, David.

• What’s he like when he gets to know you better?

• [Woman] He’s a sweetie. He could leave tomorrow if he had somewhere to go.

• Ah!

• What’s the matter, David?

• The matter? Well, it started out, it was all such a long long long long long time ago.

• [Narrator] Fine Line Features presents one of the year’s best films. It’s electrifying acting and filmmaking.

• Now of course “Shine” unlike the fluff of “The Seven Year Itch”, which perhaps I suppose somehow parodies Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, rather unfortunately. But nonetheless, I wanted to play it for you just to show how often it crops up. “Shine” does parallel, to some extent, 'cause of the terrible depression and problems that David Helfgott had. Of course, he never, ever recovered to the level of a pianist that apparently he was as a student at the Royal College. Parallels the life of Rachmaninoff. And let me explain why. Rachmaninoff published his First Piano Concerto in 1891. He was only 18. And then he published a symphony in 1897, Symphony Number 1. It was absolutely criticised to the rafters. In a sense it was a disaster. And it created terrible problems for him. He suffered incredibly as a result of this. And as a result, he consulted Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a physician who at that particular point in time was exploring a range of hypnosis techniques.

And Rachmaninoff later wrote, I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after day while I lay half asleep in the armchair in Dahl’s study, you’ll write a concerto, you’ll write with great facility, it’ll be excellent. Although it may sound incredible, this cure really helped me. By the autumn, I’d finished two movements of the Concerto. And as a result of which, I dunno how many other Concerti would’ve been had this treatment… The Second Piano Concerto is dedicated to Nikolai Dahl because Rachmaninoff felt that it was he who had basically restored his confidence and allowed him to compose this remarkable piece of music, which became the most popular piano concerto perhaps of all time. What is interesting is it didn’t necessarily receive a very fine reception. Give you an example. When it was first played in Boston at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philip Hale, who wrote the notes at the time for the concerts, said of the Second Piano Concerto, that it was laboured, that it was basically hugely uneven, uneven in verse, very repetitive and could well have been written by a German who had known Tchaikovsky. So how’s that for a little bit of national stereotyping.

But it was not well received to start with. But of course that wasn’t for that long. Because in many ways it is a remarkable piece of work. It does draw on Tchaikovsky’s First for the obvious reason, that particularly in this, that Tchaikovsky had this technique of finding some wonderful tune, which would sum up the whole piece. And in the Second Piano Concerto, that’s exactly what happens. The final two minutes, the pianist rushes all over the keyboard, showing a virtuosity, which was remarkable and having the audience on its feet. But when one looks at the concerto for the first time, it plays for more analytical attention. It was written, as I say, in 1900 and 1901, very much at the beginning of his career. And what is interesting about it is its beginning. It’s apparently so that during the period of Mozart and Beethoven and even before that, a pianist did not just come onto the stage with the orchestra, but would actually walk on, improvise a few bars and then start the piece. And Stephen Hough, who is a very, very fine pianist, who you’ll hear a little later, he suggests that actually if you, Rachmaninoff was a very nervous performer apparently. Because if you actually listen to it, I’m going to play the first couple of minutes, when you listen to it, it starts off with the pianist playing a number of chords, from the softest pianist could play to the loudest, almost if, as Hough said, as he’s testing the instrument, testing the audience, putting the audience in the mood for the piece, which is about to come by playing these very rich chords. And then, it’s only then, after that occurs, in a sense, you start getting the orchestra, which plays the melody and you really hardly hear the pianist for a while, until it all settles down. And it is remarkable because it starts, as we will see, with these cords based on F, not the home key at all.

From the lowest F, each reinforced by a tolling of the lowest F on the keyboard, gathering and sort of harmonic tension. And then it comes out of the chords and a few notes later we hear in C minor, different, the home key, we hear the actual melody being played most magnificently by the orchestra. Just quite remarkable construction that Rachmaninoff actually uses for this particular piece. And there’s no question that by the time this remarkable first tune is played, he’s probably won over the orchestra. But it is a very interesting beginning just hearing these chords and then the melody from the orchestra and the, at that point, hardly hearing the piano except for the pianist in the background. So let’s listen to Rachmaninoff himself playing the first couple of minutes of his Second Piano Concerto. It is true, by the way, that he played it very quickly. There are a number of arguments about this. Did he play it much more quickly than the virtuosi of today? There is an argument that in order to fit it on the record, he had to cut out a couple of the, sort of, extras that perhaps were there and that therefore the speed is not as quick as otherwise it would be the case. But it certainly, if you look at it, it clocks in at around about 31 minutes and the next quickest I could find was Van Cliburn at 34 minutes. So it is no question about it, that Rachmaninoff does play it at a quicker pace than almost any contemporary pianist that I’ve ever heard. But let’s just hear the beginning by Rachmaninoff himself and then we’ll play a more modern version.

Okay, Lauren, we can end this 'cause we’ve got to move on. Just a couple of other things about that. It’s just remarkable to me the way in which once you get through those chords and the, of these years, that are played thereafter, the integration between the orchestra and the pianist’s remarkable. And one other observation, and we all come back to this in the Third Piano Concerto, is that Rachmaninoff was very influenced by Russian church music. And so the suggestion is that what the chords represent are actually church bells, which are there sounding, and the chords represent that. No question that he was particularly influenced, which goes back to the point I made earlier, that unlike some of the other expatriates like Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff’s music always harked back to his homeland.

Now let us listen to a more modern version. This is the young pianist, Trifonov, who I certainly heard a couple of times in your absolutely fantastic theatre, and whose recordings of the Rachmaninoff I certainly can recommend. And they’ve been highly, highly recommended by all sorts of music critics. Here’s Trifonov playing the beginning of the Rachmaninoff Second. All right, Lauren, I think we can move on. I’d love to play these pieces right through for you, but it’s impossible, I suppose, within the time allotted. But I can certainly recommend Trifonov as one of the, I think, interesting contemporary exponents of the piece. The one other thing just about it as you listen to it, the remarkable kind of way in which the harmony kind of undulating under the melody, as it were, that gives the melody the power, the way in which he was able to combine the melody with the harmony is utterly remarkable in particularly in this movement, but right throughout, throughout the composition.

I turn to the second movement. I’m not going to be able to do all three because I’ve got to do the third as well. But the second movement, again, which is particularly interesting, is that it’s the flute and then the clarinet, which plays the initial melody is a wonderful sort of, if you could call it, the way in which the pianist is part of the ensemble rather than actually as if being somewhere with the orchestras and the pertinence to virtuoso playing and they’re more than that. And here you get this particularly beautiful lyrical movement. You get the sort of example of the counterpoint within the harmony in the way in which the piano accompanies, when the flute and then finally and the clarinet come in with the melody. One of the things about this movement that many panellists comment about and was commented about Rachmaninoff was that it requires very large hands, 'cause the stretchers in the music are so large, and apparently he had Marfan syndrome, so he had these massive skeletal hands. And for some of the smaller, curse of smaller hands, it’s often been regarded as a considerable challenge.

But here we hear the way in which the piano, as it were, is led by the flute and the clarinet, is a lovely performance here by Hélène Grimaud with the absolutely incomparable Claudio Abbado conducting, one of my great conductor heroes. Thank you. It just shows you, I wanted to show you particularly just that extraordinary accompaniment and the point that I was making about the counterpoint within the harmony and the way the accompaniment takes place. I haven’t got time to play the third movement. But what is interesting about the third movement is that if the first and the second movements, in a sense, have this incredible integration between the orchestra and the piano, and notwithstanding at this virtuosity, and notwithstanding the cadenza, the truth is in the third movement, as you power through it, of course, it’s really the virtuoso of the pianist comes into the fore. And it ends in a C major, sort of in really, like Tchaikovsky in the last couple of minutes, are designed to ensure that everybody’s on their feet at the end of the performance, particularly a good one, Cape Town, generally people got onto their feet for any performance, even if the pianist played “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, But the truth about it is that, was designed to ensure that even knowledgeable people would do the necessary.

Now, I come to the Third Piano Concerto, which I’ve prefigured through “Shine”. And this comes about because Rachmaninoff makes his first tour to the United States of America in 1909 and 1910. And he was very blunt about it, by the way, why was he going, he wanted money, and he was quoted as saying this, “I’d like to buy an automobile. I can’t tell you how much I want one. I don’t want to go to America, but then perhaps after America I’ll be able to buy myself that automobile.” So he was particularly interested, it’s amazing that we got this great piano concerto because he wanted motor car and he brought this piano concerto specifically for the tour. And the premier, Rachmaninoff gave the premier of the Third Piano Concerto with the New York Symphony under the direction of Walter Damrosch on November the 28th, 1909. But significant, it was given a further performance of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Gustav Mahler in January, '10. I’ve spoken a lot about Mahler and lectures I’ve given on him, you know, Mahler really is my great musical hero.

But it’s interesting that to some extent on relation to the conducting part of it, Rachmaninoff agreed and said the following about the performance in which Mahler had been the conductor and Rachmaninoff played the Third Piano Concerto, what a concert that must have been. But this is what he said in his memoir, “Mahler was the only conductor whom I considered worthy to be classed with Arthur Nikisch,” of course, celebrated conductor of the time, “who touched my composer’s heart straightaway by devoting himself to my concerto until the accompaniment, which is rather complicated, that we practised to the point of perfection, although he had already gone through a long rehearsal.” According to Mahler, every detail of the score was important, an attitude which is unfortunately rare amongst conductors.“ Now, the Third Piano Concerto opens with a very kind of mysterious winding melody. It’s been associated, again, with a chant from the Russian Orthodox Church. But Rachmaninoff, so what we are going to hear is over muted strings we hear the piano in octaves laying out this opening statement. It does have a Russian character. And it’s often been regarded, as I say, through Russian Orthodox music.

But Rachmaninoff himself said about it, "The first theme of my Third Piano Concerto is borrowed neither from folk song forms, not from church sources. It simply wrote itself. If I had any plan in composing this theme, I was only thinking of sound. I wanted to sing the melody on the piano as a singer would.” Well I think many of us have done that subsequently there too. And to find, he said, “A suitable orchestral accompaniment or rather one that would not muffle the singing. That’s all. The singing theme appears, reappears, over and over again throughout the concerto.” And then of course we get a first theme and then we get a second theme, a little march, laid out by the strings and the woodwinds, and then this is taken up by the piano and completely transformed. And these are the two themes that he works with right through that first movement. And again, I’m not able to, as it will go through the whole thing.

But it’s interesting to me that if you take the first theme and then on the 93rd measure comes the second theme in a very different key. And then you course you have the cadenza towards the end, which is an amazing development of the first theme in all sorts of ways, in the way in which Rachmaninoff was such an expert in inversion of music. But let me, I’ve got, I’ve just chosen two openings to give you slightly different versions. One by Stephen Hough, the British pianist, who we were privileged to hear in Cape Town, a really wonderful person apart from anything else when I met him. And a very fine pianist. And the second, which we’ll play afterwards, which is the legendary but controversial recording of a young Martha Argerich with Riccardo Chailly, which has been regarded, you know, by some as the greatest and others as completely over the top. By the way, I should just say that the person who really got this thing on the map was, of course, Vladimir Horowitz, who I suppose many would say, I noticed that, you know, reading when I was preparing for this lecture, you know, the various ratings of pianists, you know, as to who the greatest was, Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Rubinstein, people of that sort, but certainly Horowitz, I wish I could play you his version, which I’ve got a couple of different recordings out at the home.

Utterly remarkable. And apparently he played it for Rachmaninoff when they first met because he was much younger than Rachmaninoff in the Steinway Studio in New York. And Rachmaninoff was utterly amazed and said he ate it whole 'cause he regarded such a challenging piece of music, which indeed it is. Here, if you listen again, it starts quieter with those octaves. I’ll first play the Stephen Hough for a couple of minutes and then we’ll listen to Martha Argerich. Okay Lauren, that’s fine. Now let’s listen to the Martha Argerich version for the first couple of minutes. The other thing which, about Rachmaninoff, which comes up here, is the way in which the entire piece builds up builds up to climax and then tapers off and then builds up to another… He’s absolutely brilliant at that. We saw that here. Gets up to climax, music, then swells and then moves quietly on to another theme. Here is Martha Argerich with Riccardo Chailly, very young Martha Argerich, I might add, but I think this is the one from which the recording is taken. Right. Okay.

And now I want to come to the end because we are moving, running out of time. The second movement of this piano concerto is really, again, interesting. Orchestra opens up somewhat wistfully and then the pianist in comes in and then there’s this recapitulation of the ideas from the first movement, which is actually quite remarkable. And what happens right towards the end of the movement is something which I think has taken from Beethoven’s Fifth. There’s a sort of bridge between the end of the second movement, just like Beethoven did in the Fifth Piano Concerto. And there’s this conversion from that bridge to the sense of propulsion of the third movement, which is quite extraordinary 'cause the orchestra, will have a series of chords and, boy, does the piano come in with a range of ideas propelling itself and sort of a really a march-like theme. And I wanted to play for you, by way of conclusion, two parts of this. This is a recording by the wonderful pianist Grigory Sokolov who really is fantastic and doesn’t do much by way of concerti any more.

In fact, this was recording, which was done at the BBC Proms I think back in at 1995. And the actual recording is not as good as the live performance, which was absolutely magnificent. But it does still give you a flavour of what a wonderful pianist he is. And by the way, you’ll have noticed just today, by my references to the young Martha Argerich, just the difference between that playing and that of Hough. I’m not suggesting one was better than the other, but it’s exactly the point that you’ve got to do when you’re apprentices. How do you make this piece different, even though people have heard it before? How do you give it a spin and an interpretation? Well, here’s Sokolov in the first part of the opening part of the third movement of this 45 minute extraordinary exhausting concerto for a pianist. And then hopefully we can play you the last minute by way of conclusion.

Lauren, if we could perhaps move it onto the last two minutes? Be wonderful. I’ve been promising you all night the way in which Rachmaninoff actually ends his concerti. And here you’ve got the sort of really big tune, which is borrowed from Tchaikovsky, which ends the whole piece quite remarkably. Thank you, Lauren. Absolutely extraordinary performance by Sokolov. If you can get a hold of a copy of that, I think it’s on YouTube. It’s absolutely wonderful. And, you know, in the way it just illustrates precisely, it’s a wonderful way in which Rachmaninoff takes a syncopated chordal scene, which runs through the third movement and he pushes it towards this triumphant conclusion, as I said to you, certainly borrowed from Tchaikovsky, but quite magnificent anyway. So I hope you enjoyed listening to the Rachmaninoff 2 and 3. I’ll just see if there are any questions, which I’m more than happy to answer. Let me just get them, 'cause I’m normally useless at this.

Q&A and Comments:

Judith, I assume he says it’s quite ridiculous for Rachmaninoff being in “The Seven Year Itch”, I suppose it is, but I just wanted to illustrate just how far it is. The title of the film, Jean, is “Shine”, 1996 film with Jean Jeffrey Rush.

Liz, Several years ago at the BBC Prom, a Latvian choir sang Russian church music, which seemed seem to perform as the Third Piano Concerto and the Second. I agree with you, Liz, all my reading was that he was influenced by Russian church music and the bells, certainly in the second concerto. But I was interested in his own comment.

Q: Then there’s this, Judith, can you please comment on the Warsaw concerto that I do not recall who wrote it.

A: Oh, well, that’s very interesting. It was written by a chap called Richard Addinsell, if I remember correctly, it was written for a film called “Dangerous Moonlight”, which was reflective of, if I remember correctly, the Polish struggle against the Nazis. And he basically shaped the style on Rachmaninoff, that was the link. And that’s why there’s a link to Rachmaninoff.

Monty, in “The Seven Year Itch” Tom Ewell plays the piece off music on his record player.

That’s Rachmaninoff. Yes. When he asks how she knew it’s classical, she says, “Oh, it has no vocal.” Yeah. Dennis Globe, some years ago, BBC Magazine invited 100 prominent pianists to submit the three nominations as the greatest of all time. There had to have been heard live or record, excluding such contenders as Chopin and Liszt, the declared winner was Rachmaninoff ahead of Rubinstein and Horowitz. And the one pianist to place him in the overall correct order was David Helfgott. That’s really interesting. I knew that Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Horowitz were there. I’m not sure I would’ve, you know, got it right. But nonetheless, obviously they were crucial. And I should tell you just one personal anecdote about Rubinstein, in the early 1970s as a student, I think it was, when I was in England, I heard Rubinstein very, very late in his life. And I remember the the music critic, I certainly didn’t know enough at the time, but the music critic said, on the one hand he played, I think the Beethoven 5, the music critic said that never heard so many wrong notes played in one concerto and never heard it played so well, meaning Rubinstein had an understanding of the music, not withstanding the fact that he hit the wrong notes, it was absolutely magnificent.

Soliberg, I agree with your love of Rachmaninoff 2, I know Concerto, Symphony where each new produces. It is, that’s magnificent. There’s no question.

Gary, I studied piano with a Russian pianist who knew Rachmaninoff and he always emphasised melody singing over the accompany figure in the left hand, this might explain his faster tempi, has enabled the music to float easier over the left hand fingers. And also important it’s at a tempo that a singer could sing. That’s an interesting point, because I don’t think it’s just about the recording, there is clearly something which justified the significantly quicker playing by Rachmaninoff, if anything else.

Jonathan’s speaks about having gone to listen to Helfgott. Yes. And he was out of his depth and it was embarrassing and I felt very bad about that too when I heard him. I agree with you. And Martin takes issue with me about Cape Town audiences.

Martin, I’ve always been upset by Cape Town audiences that insist on giving a standing ovation to everybody. I’m not suggesting that they shouldn’t be enthusiastic. I love Cape Town audiences. I’m in the orchestra. We’re desperately trying to save it and hopefully you can help us. But I do think, from time to time, they stand up for anything including performances who are shocking. And I don’t think you should do that. I think it basically demeans the fact that when you really do pay a tribute to somebody who’s played magnificently.

Thank you very much, Rodney. Thank you very much, Suzanne.

Yes, Gita. I mean Martha Argerich was very beautiful in her young life, her young days, and she was of course an unbelievable pianist.

In 1963, says Rosemary, in a JCE woman’s residence, I was playing Rachmaninoff on my record player. The next door came in, commented that she thought it was amazing what they had made out of the song. After some discussion turned out she thought the film “Empty Arms” came first. Yeah, poor old Rachmaninoff.

Thank you very much, Hindi.

Oh, okay, Barry, I agree with you about the themes on, the Variations on a Theme of Paganini, the 18th variation. I mean, you’re right, that’s the most romantic piece of music, you know, of all time.

And may be going back to Martin’s point, perhaps just hearing it, you jump out of your seat, notwithstanding whoever played it or rules it.

Thank you, Dawn, and thank you, Marilyn, and thank you, Penny and Georgine.

David Helfgott… Well, I mean, he really disappeared to a large degree because as I think it was indicated by one of our friends earlier, I mean, he was really, you know, he was out of his depth. I read a review which said, that’s by a critic who said that they had listened to some of the tapes that he’d made as a student and he truly was a prodigy before his breakdown. Very sad. I’m sorry that the sound was bad. The Paganini, of course, is, of course, and Variations on a Theme of Paganini is a separate piece of music by Rachmaninoff. And if you ever want to have an illustration of the concept of inversion with the 18th variation, if you look at the earlier part of that piece of music in one of the earlier variations, and then you compare it to the 18th, it’s an inversion. It’s a total upside down of the earlier part. It’s absolutely brilliant example of music inversion.

Q: What do you see in musical similarities, says Romaine, in Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff?

A: Clearly, as I said, Rachmaninoff was influenced, comes from that school of Glinka, Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff comes from that, the romantic school, and certainly in some of the starts, some of the beginnings, and definitely the way that both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff wrapped up their pieces with these great tunes, in inverted commas, there’s a great deal of similarity.

Another thing we’ve referenced is the original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in the particular tune played. I haven’t seen “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, Elaine, but thank you. Naomi, thank you for supporting, the Toronto audiences do the same. By the way, I still prefer people who stand up than some of the ones in England, where nobody stands up, even though you’ve got the greatest music of all time. I find that also very odd, but then perhaps that’s my South African temperament.

And thank you very much, Jennifer, and to everybody, a Good Yontif, stay safe, thank you very much.