Sergei Rachmaninoff

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of the fact that the solo is often sonically buried in unyielding orchestral textures. There are, to be sure, virtuosic flights aplenty for the piano, and lyrical ones, too, but the work is hardly all the pianist’s show.
The Concerto opens with a series of rather ponderous, static, unaccompanied piano chords which lead to the orchestras statement of a sardonic main theme taken by the strings while the keyboard spills out continuous cascades of harmonic embellishment. Finally a martial answer by the piano – on the first two notes of the main theme – leads to a melodically and harmonically luxurious second theme given by piano alone. This is the breathless, heart-on-sleeve expressiveness that Rachmaninoff is all about, and its being in a major key helps to correct the notion that Rachmaninoff in excelsis must be somber and maudlin.
The slow movement, beginning with Beethoven "Moonlight"-Sonata-like triplets in the piano accompanying piquant conversations in the winds, is a ...

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