A guide to Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony and its best recordings
Perfectly proportioned, ingeniously constructed and melodically exultant, Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony represents – alongside his Third Piano Concerto – the creative summit of the composer’s recovery period following the critical mauling meted out to his First Symphony a decade before.
Alexander Glazunov’s insensitive and (apparently) inebriated premiere account of Rachmaninov’s fledgling symphony had inspired one of the most infamous pieces of newspaper criticism from fellow composer César Cui: ‘If there was a conservatory in Hell, and one of its talented pupils was asked to compose a programmatic symphony based on the Seven Plagues of Egypt, if he were to write something resembling Mr Rachmaninov’s symphony, he would surely have arrived at the perfect solution, and would no doubt thoroughly entertain all of Hell’s creatures.’
When did Rachmaninov compose his Second Symphony?
Rachmaninov began suffering psychosomatic pains in his hands and legs and his inspiration virtually dried up. It took three years of support from various members of his extended family and a course of groundbreaking hypnotherapy to get him back on course with his Second Piano Concerto. By the time he completed the first movement of his new symphony during the autumn of 1906, he was in full creative flow and in high demand as composer, pianist and conductor.
It was in order to get away from the hustle and bustle of Moscow life that Rachmaninov took a working holiday in Dresden, where he wrote to his friend Nikita Morozov – whom he’d known since composition classes back in his student days – that the remaining three movements had taken three-and-a-half, two and four weeks respectively. While in Dresden, he heard a performance, directed by the composer, of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome, then only a year old, which appears to have made a most favourable impression ‘except when the music became too discordant!’
A Russian in Spain: Rachmaninov from Valladolid
Rachmaninov's glorious Second Symphony perfectly paired with a glowering "Isle of the Dead"
Glowering, glowering, menacing; and that's just the front cover. And how well it reflects Rachmaninov's music (incidentally, some would have it we spell him "Rakhmaninov" or "Rachmaninoff" or even "Rakhmaninoff," but that's transliteration for you ... let's go old school today, shall we, and plump for "Rachmaninov"?).
While the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon, founded in 1991 in Valladolid, Spain, is neither Russian nor boasts a long history, these are involving, fine accounts of well-loved works. What makes this interesting is how Andrew Gourlay finds parallels: the dark mood of TheIsle of the Dead finds its way into the first movement of the Symphony, almost bleeding into it. In fact it seems the perfect coupling.
For TheIsle of the Dead, Rachmaninov was inspired by a painting by Arnold Böcklin (a painting of which, incidentally, the artist produced no fewer than five versions). The mood of the painting maps superbly well onto Rachmaninov's music:
Speaking of this recording, Gourlay talks about his family history with this music in this video, which helps explain the rapport he has with it:
The Second Symphony is a big-boned beast, with expansive outer movements, a Scherzo with bullish, unstoppable horns and strings that seem resolutely intent on creating counterpoint come what may, before a march finds its way in and we arrive at a slow movement that contains lush melody after lush melody. This slow movement has been multiply plundered by popular music: here's Eric Carmen with his song Never Gonna Fall in Love Again:
And on a more jazz front, here is Danilo Perez:
But when it comes to the music per se, the art of Rachmaninov performance is to find the lyricism and yet not to wallow in it. From that standpoint, Gurlay offers a Rachmaninov Second for today.
Intere
Rachmaninoff symphony no 2 op 27 iii adagio
Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 – which recording is best?
Despite composing in what the musicologist Richard Taruskin teasingly labels a ‘new stile antico’, Rachmaninov now looks like a major symphonist. At the London Proms, this least confrontational, most ‘conservative’ of his works in the form has been scheduled 13 times since his centenary year. Just two outings predate 1973. Reacting to 1924’s performance, Gramophone regular WR Anderson condemned music which ‘though it contains dozens of skilful openings, does so little with any of them…and generally spends its substance to surprisingly little profit’. Unabridged accounts were rare until the step change associated with André Previn’s LSO. For older Brits it can be difficult to listen beyond their 1973 recording. Even in the United States, where Rachmaninov enjoyed a more respectable profile, Leopold Stokowski may have been unique in rendering the score uncut, as at the Hollywood Bowl in 1946 (Music & Arts, 7/94).
Rachmaninov’s scores are frugal with expressive indicators, unlike Elgar’s or Mahler’s. We know he required a high degree of rhythmic definition: marcato is a frequent injunction. But how much interpretative flexibility did this much-travelled musician anticipate as a matter of course (unmarked gear changes being routinely favoured by native Russians even today)? Was he really happy with the glitzier, more cushioned Philadelphia style?
How helpful is the recent vogue for including the first-movement exposition repeat? For the composer John Pickard this nod to Classical convention ‘tautologically undermines the dramatic impact not only of the first movement but of the symphony as a whole’. In another league of self-harm is the attitude of the composer’s estate which in our own century backed Alexander Warenberg’s refashioning of the score into a 43-minute ‘fifth’ Rachmaninov piano concerto.
Rachmaninov’s reception history is full of paradoxes. His essential Russianness wowed the Soviet
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Russian composer, pianist and conductor (1873–1943)
"Rachmaninoff" redirects here. For other uses, see Rachmaninoff (disambiguation).
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuosopianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness, dense contrapuntal textures, and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he used his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument.
Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff began learning the piano at the age of four. He studied piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1892, having already written several compositions. In 1897, following the disastrous premiere of his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little, until supportive therapy allowed him to complete his well-received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. Rachmaninoff went on to become conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre from 1904–1906, and relocated to Dresden, Germany, in 1906. He later embarked upon his first tour of the United States as a pianist in 1909.
After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family left Russia permanently, set