Thursday January 7, 2010


Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 44 (10/16/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Leila Josefowicz's appearance with the Colorado Symphony this weekend.
George Gershwin (arr. Jascha Heifetz): Prelude No.2
Leila Josefowicz, violin; John Novacek, piano
Philips 462 948 Track 11 3:47
Felix Mendelssohn: "Allegro molto appassionato" (1st movement) from Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64
Leila Josefowicz, violin; Colorado Music Festival Orchestra/ Michael Christie
Colorado Music Festival (7/6/06) 12:47


Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 44
I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio non troppo
III. Allegro

``When I compose I am a slave,'' wrote Rachmaninoff. ``Beginning at nine in the morning I allow myself no respite until after eleven at night. A poem, a picture, something concrete helps me immensely. There must be something real before my mind to convey a definite impression, or the ideas refuse to appear.''
In two separate sessions in Switzerland in 1935 and 1936, the ideas appeared for the Third Symphony. It had been almost thirty years since his last symphony.
Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra introduced the work on November 6, 1936. The reviews were mixed. The Symphony was praised for its ``sincerity and personal accent,'' its ``technique and skill in orchestration,'' and its ``impassioned stress.'' However, one review called it ``a chewing over again of something that never had importance to start with.''
Rachmaninoff was resigned. ``The critics are not helpful,'' he told a reporter. ``When my first symphony was first played they said it was so-so. Then when my second was played they said the first was good, but the second was so-so. Now that my third has been played, they say my first and second are good but that my--oh, well, you see how it is.''
When Sir Henry Wood conducted the Third Symphony in Liverpool, he wrote: ``The work impresses me as being of the true Russian romantic school; one cannot get away from the beauty and melodic line of the themes and their logical development. As did Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff uses the instruments of the orchestra to their fullest effect. Those lovely little phrases for solo violin, echoed on the four solo woodwind instruments, have a magical effect in the slow movement. I am convinced that Rachmaninoff's children will see their father's third symphony take its rightful place in the affection of that section of the public which loves melody.''
Biographer Geoffrey Norris writes: ``Of all Rachmaninoff's late works, the Third Symphony is the one that most resolutely looks back to his mature Russian years in the impassioned turn of the phrases, the rich string writing and the soaring cello tunes. The Third is pervaded by a pithy, chant-like motto theme, heard in the opening bars on clarinets, horns and cellos. But the Third differs from his other symphonies in having only three movements, with a sharp-edged scherzo incorporated into the central slow movement. It is here, and in the buoyant finale, that we can detect certain stylistic features peculiar to the works of his later years: a rhythmic crispness, a pungent spice to the harmonies and a sparer, more discriminating use of the orchestra, with particular attention being paid to the percussion and to the individual tone qualities of solo instruments. Running through the whole symphony, though, is Rachmaninoff's unmistakable strain of nostalgia and Slavic melancholy, here so pronounced that we may perhaps regard the Third Symphony as the most Russian-sounding of them all.''
The Symphony is scored for piccolo, flutes, English horn, clarinets, bassoons, contrabassoon, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta and strings.