How Radical Was Rachmaninoff?

“Only the anachronism has a chance to outlast the epoch,” the Austrian author Franz Werfel wrote, in the early nineteen-forties. At a time of dizzying cultural change, Werfel saw a hidden advantage in the art work that lags behind, its gaze averted to the past. Like many good aphorisms, Werfel’s saying is a dubious assertion that points to a complex truth. Perceptions of aesthetic currency—what is modern, what is outmoded—grow blurry as time passes and priorities shift.

One aspect of Rachmaninoff’s legacy that deserves greater scrutiny is his peculiar resonance with early-twentieth-century American pop music. George Gershwin, the son of Russian immigrants, could not have composed “Rhapsody in Blue” without the example of the Rachmaninoff concertos. Frank Sinatra sang no fewer than three numbers inspired by themes from the Second Concerto, which was written in 1900 and 1901: “I Think of You,” “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” and “All by Myself.

The best Rachmaninoff performances illuminate the interconnectedness of his language. It’s not enough to pound out the big tunes and the thunderous double octaves; players must also animate the lightly skittering, almost Mendelssohnian passagework that surrounds the splashy moments. At Bard, the young Moscow-born pianist Andrey Gugnin proved adept at this sort of quicksilver figuration.

alexrossmusic The guy in the pic looks like what’s his name Trump friend who wears 🎩 lives in Florida he was also pardoned. I don’t remember his name

You be the judge but listen to this magnificent composition in full stereo:

Either way, Rachmaninoff is absolutely my jam. His work is sweeping and brutal and gorgeous.

There are many good points and observations about Rachmaninoff's work, but the article doesn't seem to make the faintest attempt to actually answer the question it poses.

yo those op 33 and 39 etudes were pretty gnarly

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