Thursday January 21, 2010


Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor; Olga Kern, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Opus 40 (10/23/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Benedetto Lupo's appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend.
Nino Rota: Concerto Soirée
Benedetto Lupo, piano; Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana/ Massimo de Bernart
Nuova Era 7063 5-9 19:54
Charley anticipates the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado's "Mozart by Candlelight" concert this weekend.
Georg Philipp Telemann: Oboe Concerto in C minor
Debra Nagy, oboe; Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado 8:32
NCA (5/1/09)


Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Opus 40
I. Allegro vivace
II. Largo
III. Allegro vivace

The most neglected of Rachmaninoff's concertos, the Fourth dates from as early as 1911, when he wrote an Étude-Tableau in C minor, originally intended for his Opus 33 set but withdrawn. In 1914 a Russian musical periodical mentioned that he was working on a concerto. A year later, Rachmaninoff complained of ``being unable to control either the work or myself and so I gave up working.''
It wasn't until 1926 that he resumed work on the Concerto, first in New York and later in Dresden, where he completed it in August. He was concerned about the length of the piece and remarked to his old friend Nikolai Medtner that ``it will probably be performed like `The Ring' on several evenings in succession.''
After the first performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski on March 18, 1927, Rachmaninoff played the Concerto in New York and other cities to generally negative critical reaction. Calling the work ``long-winded, tiresome, unimportant, in places tawdry,'' Pitts Sanborn wrote that ``Mme. Cécile Chaminade might safely have perpetrated it on her third glass of vodka.'' Lawrence Gilman said the Concerto ``remains as essentially nineteenth century as if Tchaikovsky had signed it.''
Rachmaninoff made revisions in the score during the summer of 1927 and still more revisions in 1941.
After a typical upward sweep by the orchestra, the piano enters with the first theme, derived from the earlier Étude-Tableau. A more lyrical second theme follows, and a development section based primarily on a fragment of the first theme. The middle movement's melody reminded some critics of the nursery tune Three Blind Mice. Indeed, Rachmaninoff reprimanded Medtner for not noticing the music's resemblence to Schumann's Piano Concerto. A transition based on the same Étude-Tableau leads directly to the Finale, which features themes both brilliant and lyrical, as well as reminiscences of the first two movements.