A very happy birthday to Sergei Rachmaninov - 1873; and to Sviatoslav Richter (1915). Those who turn up their delicate noses at Rachmaninov's music are depriving themselves of a huge joy: uniquely stirring, magnificently constructed, utterly sincere - his music is a miracle.
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For decades the cognoscenti smugly dismissed Rachmaninov as a mere panderer, a composer of musical treacle whose triviality was revealed by the self-indulgent shapelessness of his largest works. But in fact he was a brilliant, highly motivic designer of large-scale structures.
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The whole of his celebrated (and vast) third piano concerto, for example, is constructed from material presented in its first two measures -- before the entrance of the piano. And Rachmaninov knew from whom to steal, too: this material comes from Mozart.http://bit.ly/2GMHGpa
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Rachmaninov was a constant frustration to Scriabin, who, though himself a prodigy, continually came second to (the slightly younger) Rachmaninov in their counterpart and harmony exams. Somehow people seem often to forget that Rachmaninov was a brilliant choral and vocal composer.
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