Rachmaninoff: 王羽佳

Under the title My Rachmaninoff, Alexander Krichel will release his new album on Berlin Classics on March 24, 2023, and with it a very personal tribute to the Russian pianist and composer, whose birthday will be celebrated for the 150th time just a few days later. For his eighth album, Alexander Krichel has selected works that have shaped his strong connection to Rachmaninoff. From the world-famous Prélude Op. 3 No. 2 in C-sharp minor to the virtuosic Corelli Variations and Études- Tableaux, some of the most difficult repertoire written for piano, to the concluding Vocalise, Krichel invites listeners to discover Rachmaninoff's biography musically. He wants to inspire his audience with the music of this great composer in the same way that it once captivated him.

Sergei Rachmaninoff - Rachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances: Newly Discovered 1940 Recording (2018) {3CD Set Marston 53022-2}
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© 2018 Marston | 53022-2
Classical / Early 20th Century / Piano Solo / Piano Concerto / Historic Recording

At an impromptu gathering in 1940, Sergei Rachmaninoff demonstrated at the piano just how he wanted his new orchestral work, Symphonic Dances, to be performed. Rachmaninoff, one of the greatest of all pianists, reduced the orchestral score for a single piano on this occasion. That recording is presented here in two versions: first, edited to conform to the score and again, just as the occasion unfolded, as Rachmaninoff jumped from place to place as he demonstrated.

César Franck's Prelude, Variations and Fugue, originally composed for organ and inspired by pieces by J.S. Bach, benefits from Cavaillé-Coll's innovations, which allow the organ to develop virtuoso and colourful playing. Pianist Ivan Yanakov records it here on piano, alongside two other brilliant works: Joseph Haydn's Sonata No 31, whose graceful ornamentation responds to the serene (and unusual) key of A flat major, and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Variations on a Theme by Corelli. Rachmaninoff's last work for solo piano, composed in France after a silence of almost 10 years, is based on the folia theme used by Corelli in his Op. 5, while paying tribute to the Romantic composers, first and foremost Liszt, with unbridled virtuosity and poignant melancholy.

Every pianist in his dream plays Rachmaninoff. Playing Rachmaninoff is part of being a pianist. When I play Rachmaninoff, I may find even greater satisfaction in being part of the ongoing adventure of pianism. When I play Rachmaninoff, my fingers dream, not me. I have chosen one for the album from an uncapturable plethora of Preludes and Etude-images. My selection is purely an intuitive selection of a single illuminating moment. László Borbély

Star tenor Piotr Beczala presents a selection of romances by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, together with the acclaimed lied accompanist Helmut Deutsch. The romance was the most popular musical genre in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Russia, practised by professionals as well as amateurs. Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff both enriched this genre with their lyricism and melodic invention. Elevated by Deutsch’s splendid accompaniment, Beczala delivers these songs with a great sense for the Slavic idiom and meaning of the words, combined with colourful lyricism and italianità, perfectly fitting the Russian and cosmopolitan musical language of these two masters.

Alexander Scriabin, whose 150th anniversary we celebrated in 2022, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, one year his junior, were rivals at the Moscow Conservatory as students in both piano and composition. At the piano final exam in 1891, Rachmaninoff was awarded first prize and Scriabin second – it’s fascinating just to imagine what this rivalry between music history’s most famous classmates had been like. Subsequently, they went their separate ways; in particular, Scriabin became drawn to Nietzsche’s Übermensch theory and Blavatsky’s theosophy and his musical style changed drastically, leading to his so-called music of mysticism with the heavy use of progressive harmonies.