March 2006 Classical Club- Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2

[duchess of malfi]

Here is a link to some biographical information on Rachmaninoff:
victorian.fortunecity.com/parkstreet/74 ... ring.html#

Here is a link to a page about the Second Symphony (there is even a video you can watch, though I cannot watch it because I have a slow dial up connection and my ISP sucks ):
www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.c ... on_id=3061

To understand why this work is important to me you would have to head back about thirteen years in my life. At that time my younger son was a baby in arms and I was taking care of him during the day, I was working full time afternoon shift, and I was attending a small local university full time on the weekends. In addition to all of that I was taking a music appreciation class at the local community college. I had previously attended a large university for a couple of years, and I had enough transfer credits that I only had to take classes in my major at the small one and all of my general ed classes were done - except for one humanities class. Hence the music appreciation class to finish up that one requirement at a much lower cost.

Pretty much two years of my life are now a big blur in my memory from while all of that was going on. One of the very distinct memories I have (other than of my children) is one from that music class.

Now, the professor was really into roots music and blues and jazz. But he did sprinkle in bits of classical from time to time. And one day he had everyone come in and put our heads down on our desks and close our eyes, he turned off the lights and told everyone to relax. He then started playing a piece of classical music - one of the most beautiful melodies I had ever heard (and have still ever heard right up until today!). And then he told everyone to raise their hands when they heard the climax!

Well that music was the third movement, the adagio, of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony. It is beautiful. It is like someone took the best sex they could ever have and turned that experience into music. That lovely melody just builds and builds and builds...until yes, there is a climax.

Later we listened to the entire symphony. It is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. It is lovely...it is like a celebration of beauty, but it is not sugary sweet. There is plenty of passion mixed in, and enough doubt and darkness to give it a nice edge.

I have always thought that this (particularly the third movement) is the music that the Wraiths must dance to at the Celebration of Spring in Andelain.

[Fist and Faith]

Well, Rachmaninoff is another guy I wish I knew better. I don't know any of the Russians all that well. But I know that the very piece you're talking about, the 3rd movement, in fact, is where Eric Carmen got the music for his Never Gonna Fall in Love Again. And Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto provides the music for All By Myself. Carmen was a fan, en?

So now you've made it sound extremely enticing! Wagner's Prelude to Tristan und Isolde was, I'm told, the first piece of music that was intentionally written to depict sex. (More likely it's just the first of anywhere near that length. Erm... not that size matters.) I love the Wagner prelude immensely, and I certainly need to give Rachmaninoff's 2nd a shot! I'm pretty sure I have a cd of it. I got so many promos, and, because of the employee discount, bought many things that I've always intended to listen to. I hope I remember to dig this one up when I pick up my kids after work today. Almost all of my cd's are still there, after a year and a half.

Thanks, duchess!

[matrixman]

Thanks for the links, duchess. I read the essay on Symphony No.2, but I declined to watch the video as it uses Realplayer, which I despise. I never allow Realplayer to be installed on my PC. The program is notorious for causing system havoc, stock market crashes, nuclear plant meltdowns, freak storms off the Pacific, and so on. (Okay, a slight exaggeration.)

I managed to download a recording of the symphony to listen to (performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy).

Lately I've been so used to the clean and transparent sound of period instruments (particularly in Beethoven), as well as to the modern (and post-modern!) sounds of contemporary classical music, that to suddenly switch to Rachmaninov was a bit disorienting. Whoa, what was this wall of sound? I hadn't sat down for a full-blooded, Romantic-era work like this in a long time. After a few minutes I managed to get the hang of the symphony and enjoy it, though sitting at the computer isn't exactly conducive to letting myself wallow in the music.

I've listened to the 2nd Symphony twice now. Early impression: it's a beautifully grand piece of music and very dynamic, which is important in keeping the listener's attention (well, this listener, anyway). This symphony rolls along at a good pace (or maybe that's just the good performance). So, I'm pleasantly surprised and impressed by Rachmaninov the symphonist, since I had known him only as the piano concertist. A work like this, with its long, epic movements and fervent emotional outpouring, could easily have been a bloated mess, but the 2nd Symphony doesn't seem superfluous. It feels purposeful. Like you said, duchess, it's passionate and rich without being sugary sweet, with some darkness and doubt thrown in to enhance the flavor (sorry, lame food metaphors).

I'll need to listen to the symphony a few more times in order to better tell apart the movements; they aren't individually distinctive in my mind right now (the way Beethoven's symphonic movements are, for instance). At the moment, I can't say that I found the third movement to be, um, particularly orgasmic. Maybe I need to be in the right mood...