Conductor: Aram Demirjian
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor (pianist: Joyce Yang)
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor
There have been some notable anniversaries in the music world of 2018, among them Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday, for which there have been global celebrations of his music. It was also composer Charles Gounod’s 200th birthday, and the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Gustav Holst’s The Planets. And—although you probably won’t find it on any national lists—2018 was the 75th anniversary of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s last public performance in Knoxville, on February 17, 1943.
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra made note of the occasion in February with a performance of one of Rachmaninoff’s last major compositions, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, with pianist Tanya Gabrielian. [My review of that concert can be found here.]
However, it’s still 2018 and there’s still time to celebrate and explore the music of Rachmaninoff—something the KSO is doing in its season-opening Masterworks concerts this week. This time, KSO music director Aram Demirjian has chosen a work from an earlier, and pivotal, moment in the composer’s career: his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. The concerto was first performed in its complete form in November of 1901, a breakthrough moment in the composer’s life where he was able to overcome a lengthy, unproductive period of depression, apathy, and lack of confidence.
The concerto is dedicated to Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who helped the composer with his composer’s block crisis with a type of hypnosis. It is said that Rachmaninoff would lie in Dahl’s chair in a state of half-sleep while the doctor repeated suggestions such as “You will begin to write your concerto” and “the concerto will be of great quality.”
While it may be difficult to imagine that such a technique could be a contributor to such a sublime piece of music, the history is there to prove it. The concerto drips with Russian lyricism that is intriguingly virtuosic, with the piano and orchestra each having a go at poignant melodies. The piece opens with just the piano tolling out a series of chords with the strings initiating a theme. The second Adagio sostenuto movement shifts from C minor to E major with some lovely arpeggios, and unparalleled beauty and delicacy in the movement’s coda. Having been won over by lyricism of the Adagio, listeners are generally easy marks for the push and pull of the final Allegro scherzando and its confident momentum.
Pianist in the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor—Joyce Yang
“Yang came to international attention in 2005 at the age of 19 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Following that occasion, she made a celebrated New York Philharmonic debut with Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall in November 2006 and performed on the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Subsequent appearances with the Philharmonic included the opening night of the Leonard Bernstein Festival in September 2008, at the special request of Maazel in his final season as music director. The New York Times pronounced her performance in Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety a ‘knockout.'”
Astute listeners may guess the connection of the Rachmaninoff concerto to the concluding work on the KSO’s program—the Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68. Although created some 25 years apart with different cultural catalysts, the two works represent a breakthrough point of the composers’ careers. Brahms was 43 and had agonized over the gestation of his first symphony. And, there are technical similarities as well. They both open in the key of C minor, yet depart to a second movement of E major for a substantial journey through gorgeous lyricism. And, they both illustrate a love of sensuous melody, backed up with a rhythmic and harmonic strength.
Toward his continuing goal of introducing contemporary composers to Knoxville audiences, Demirjian is opening the concert with Starburst by Jonathan Leshnoff, a 45 year-old composer based in Baltimore. In March of this year, the Nashville Symphony premiered Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 4, “Heichalos”.
