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Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1.
    Recorded 4 December 1939 & 24 February 1940.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G-Minor, Op. 40.
    Recorded 20 December 1941.
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43.*
    Recorded 24 December 1934.
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy & Leopold Stokowski,* Conductors.
  RCA Victor Red Seal 56659 (Mono, ADD).  Also included in RCA Sets:
  RCA Victor Gold Seal 61658 (Four Concertos and Paganini Rhapsody),
  RCA Victor Gold Seal 61265 (Sergei Rachmaninoff:  The Complete Recordings).
Previously released as part of  RCA Victor Red Seal LM-6123 (33 r.p.m., Mono).

Writing reviews of these recordings is very difficult for me.  For all three of these recordings were my introduction to each of the compositions contained herein.  Since I was four years old, in 1969, I have listened to each of these recordings on vinyl from the RCA Victor set LM-6123 countless times, and they represent the standards by which I judge all other recordings.  Each of these has become so ingrained in my subconscious, that it has become nearly impossible for me to reflect upon them intellectually.

And yet, what makes each of these recordings so unique and special to me has been my emotional identification with them.  So, in reviewing them, I believe that the best approach would be to explain why these recordings have become so irreplaceable to me.

The single, overwhelming, reason that comes to mind is their tense and powerful drama.  It is fitting, therefore,  that this set opens with the First Concerto, with its blaring horn fanfare in the First Movement (Vivace) setting the stage for some of the most melodramatic and melancholic sounds I've ever heard on record.  The horns clearly define this movement, offering a blunt counterpoint to Sergei Rachmaninoff's brutal, dampen-pedal heavy rendering in ff of the chordal passages.  Yet, in repose to the introduction is the delicate melody of the central theme, in which Rachmaninoff's playing becomes more gentle, wistful and dexterous to the tender strings and muted winds of the Philadelphians.  Yet, what makes the movement so powerful is how beautifully tragic Rachmaninoff and Eugene Ormandy are able to foreshadow the impending doom of the brass and percussion and staccatoed playing of Rachmaninoff's Steinway.  They shift gears between melancholy and tragedy so effortlessly, as I've heard in no performance since.

The Second Movement (Andante) also opens with the brass, save in this instance it is a lone French horn which gives way to a refrain on the lower strings and then the low winds, in a more elegiacal theme.  As Rachmaninoff's solo piano takes over the theme, one senses two predominant emotions: Loneliness and loss.  Rachmaninoff's fingers move through this movement deftly, lingering on each note, as if afraid to let go.  The orchestra appears intermittently to add nostalgic commentary, but never obtrusively;  They merely seem there to give comfort.  This is the saddest and most understated performance of this movement I've ever heard.

Of course, the Finale (Allegro vivace) is introduced by the horns as well, but defiantly.  Rachmaninoff's playing here is more hopeful and life-affirming, as with the finales of so many of his works (the Second Concerto, Second Symphony and The Symphonic Dances come instantly to mind).  Still, Rachmaninoff and the Philadelphians do not reach triumph without a struggle, and this movement is full of the drama of overcoming obstacles - the very essence of tension and release, over and over again.  The ending is much like the Third Symphony:  Rather abrupt, but Rachmaninoff and Ormandy forge on towards the piece's climax subtly before unleashing a final fusillade of sound. As Rachmaninoff often said "It's not good to finish a piece before it's over!"

Thematically, the Fourth Concerto is closest to the First.  However, the Second Concerto overnight became Rachmaninoff's most popular, because of its easily accessible themes.  Since then, primarily through the efforts of Vladimir Horowitz, Alexis Weissenberg and Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Third Concerto has slowly gained in reputation, so much so that it is now Rachmaninoff's most recognizable and loved concerto  (though RCA must be out to sabotage the Third, however, by releasing the childish monstrosity recorded by David Helfgott).  Unfortunately, the Fourth Concerto has never achieved the fame of those two, which is a shame.

Of all Rachmaninoff's works, the Fourth Concerto most brilliantly achieves Rachmaninoff's ideal in orchestration and sound;  as rightly it should, after the heavy editing and re-orchestration Rachmaninoff put it through in 1941 (a mere fifteen years after its inception). Rachmaninoff was one of the most self-critical composers in history, which often was a result of criticism heaped upon him by music critics who weren't even worthy of shining his shoes.  Nonetheless, ever since his First Symphony was panned in his youth, Rachmaninoff was very insecure about his compositions.  I've never heard the Fourth Concerto in its original, full score, but the effect of Rachmaninoff's editing seems perfect - this concerto is a beautiful, self-contained, musical statement.  (I write "seems" because anyone whose heard the edited versions of the Second Symphony or Isle of the Dead think of them as definitive until hearing the more newly-recorded "complete" versions.  Then they wonder why Rachmaninoff was so insecure as to excise such beautiful, necessary, passages from these masterworks).

The same qualities which make Rachmaninoff and Ormandy's recording of the First Concerto are apparent in their performance of the Fourth.  Being the first ever recording, the performance is electric, subtle and eerie.  The First Movement (Allegro vivace), opens as forcefully as the First Concerto, but in this concerto we hear a more mature, neo-Romantic, composer.  The chords are much more complex than in his previous three offerings in this form, yet they strike the listener as more forthright and honest.  The interplay between the Philadelphia Orchestra and Rachmaninoff's piano is executed nimbly, and makes the communication between woodwinds in the Second Symphony sound primitive by comparison.  In the Fourth Concerto, Rachmaninoff weaves thematic snippets of sound together so easy and naturally as to sound inevitable.  Also noteworthy is how Rachmaninoff imparts melancholy in the opening movement;  Instead of impending doom, the movement speaks love and passion lost, much like the Adagio of  his Second Symphony.  It is so skillfully rendered in this recording that it can make one wonder if Rachmaninoff was telling us of some woman who had entered, and painfully exited, his life.

The Second Movement (Largo) is quietly imparted by the piano, but refrains on the strings bring up the subject of love lost uncomfortably, which then plunge both piano and orchestra into a pit of despair and agony.  The opening is then restated softly by the piano and upper winds, but the lower strings re-emerge forbodingly, in counterpoint. The movement closes quietly on the lower strings, in pizzicato, as Rachmaninoff's piano ascends upward in diminuendo, both converging towards a crash of orchestral sound which brings in the Finale (Allegro vivace).

The Finale is performed with much suspense and vigour by Rachmaninoff and the orchestra.  The theme of longing re-emerges momentarily, but becomes subsumed in the energy and drama as the climax approaches.  This is introduced by a five-note figure in mp by the timpanist, which conjures the ominous image of knocking on the door in the dead of night.  This figure is worked over by Rachmaninoff's piano and the orchestra, equally brutal as Rachmaninoff and Ormandy approach the concerto's end.  The tension is almost unbearable here, the overpowering emotion of apprehension hanging in the air.  Finally, in a grandiose, sustained explosion of sound, orchestra and pianist capture the climatic ending assuredly, with a sense of finality that wipes away all the uncertainty that had been building up almost imperceptibly during the entire concerto.

I invite those critics who have complained about the "hackneyed" emotions of Rachmaninoff's compositions to listen to these two concertos anew.  Indeed, they are emotional pieces.  But, after listening to Rachmaninoff, Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra perform these two concertos, hopefully said critics will understand how Rachmaninoff - himself an aloof and quiet man - could only communicate the emotions tearing him apart through his music.  Those who pontificate about Rachmaninoff's "bathos" either have no hearts or no heads.

The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is Rachmaninoff's valedictory work for piano and orchestra.  Comparatively speaking, it is among the most joyous of Rachmaninoff's compositions, and also the most lyrical.  It is a set of 24 variations for piano and orchestra based upon Nicolo Paganini's Twenty-Fourth Caprice for violin.  Although variations on this theme had been composed prior to Rachmaninoff (most notably by Brahms), the Russian composer made the definitive statement not only on the thematic material, but in the form in which he composed;  Whereas Brahms' variations are written in two sets, and have a static quality about them, Rachmaninoff has here composed a set of variations which come across to the listener as a seamless, dynamic, whole; A virtual exercise which recalls Paganini's Moto Perpetuo in form moreso than the Twenty-Fourth Caprice.

Rachmaninoff recorded the Rhapsody with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra when the work was in its infancy, a mere month-and-a-half after its world premiere, in 1934.  Thus, this is the freshest, most honest, interpretation I've heard yet - completely sui generis.  Together, Rachmaninoff and Stokowski perform the piece as though it were the classic it has become after almost 65 years.  They impart the music effortlessly, radiantly and lithely;  this performance is stripped down to bone and muscle in its tempo, without ever losing the roomy "Philadelphia Sound" which Stokowski created, and so generously lent to this performance.  Never does the piece sound weighed down, or pendantic, which is how too many pianists and orchestras perform the piece today.  An example of this is during Variation X (Poco marcato), in which Rachmaninoff's fingers do indeed stamp out the opening chords, marcato.  Yet, despite his heavy-handedness on the keys, Rachmaninoff. along with the Philadelphians, never drops the pace a degree, thus, when they descend into the 11th Variation (Moderato),  the drama is not lost through gratuitous foreshadowing.

Although the majority of  listeners love the 18th Variation most (Andante cantabile), the 16th and 17th stand out to me as the ultimate movements of this piece.  How expertly, using the same theme, Rachmaninoff can move us from joy, passion and ecstacy, to longing, desolation and fate.  That is the genius of this work, so convincingly communicated by Rachmaninoff's gentle pianism and the undercurrent of Stokowski's conducting, as he overlaps Rachmaninoff's playing with subtle textures of winds, muted brass and upper strings.

The buildup across Variations XX through XXII (all Un poco piu vivo) ascends to the climax, through the mounting suspense which seemingly ends with a thud on the bass drum, only to be taken up again in the 23rd;  Clearly, the 24th Variation is the apex towards which Stokowski and Rachmaninoff had been striving.  The finale variation literally sings with light-hearted jubilation in a chorus of brass, piano and percussion.  Few listeners to this piece have ever caught on to the irony of the final restatement of the Dies Irae theme.  In Die Toteninsel, the theme announces the inevitable onset of death, but here it  resounds through the low brass, in the midst of the greatest musical statement of the triumph of the human spirit, in the Rhapsody's penultimate notes.  Is this Paganini's defeat over evil, or his acceptance of death?  After a crashing climax, almost as a satirical afterthought, the Rhapsody ends on Rachmaninoff's solo piano, in a simple five-note restatement of the opening theme.

If you have never heard any of the pieces on this disc, introduce youself to them with the greatest recordings ever made.  If you have, buy this and prepare to change the way you think about them - forever.
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