Rachmaninov (or Rachmaninoff, depending on what transliteration you have, but definitely not "Maraschino" as Google Chrome's dictionary seems to suggest- no, I'm not kidding, that's what it suggests as a correct spelling of "Rachmaninov") was a Russian pianist, composer, conductor and poster-child for hypnotherapy. (Wow, all those roles start with p- or c-.) He was influenced by some of the other Russian composers of his time, particularly Tchaikovsky and "The Russian Five," a group of nationalistic Russian composers consisting of Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakiref, Modest Mussorgsky and Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakoff. These composers were among several Russian composers who were attempting to compose in a more Russian nationalistic style by collecting and adopting the traditions of Russian folk music.
Rachmaninov, born in Semyonovo in north-west Russia in 1873, showed skill at the piano from a young age, and he entered the Moscow Conservatorium at age 12. He wrote a lot of piano music, including several piano concertos. His First Piano Concerto was written when he was just 18 and was a very accomplished work. The first performance of his First Symphony (not to be confused with the aforementioned First Piano Concerto), however, did not go down very well, partly because it was under-rehearsed. Nevertheless, this failure sent Rachmaninov into a depression that left him unable to compose for several years. Eventually, he received hypnotherapy from Dr. Nikolai Dahl, which helped him to recover and write his Second Piano Concerto, which proved to be a great success.
Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto is structured more or less like most other Romantic solo concertos (well, the first movement is, at least). The first movement of Classical solo concertos often had a double exposition, in which the themes were played by the orchestra in the first exposition and by the soloist in the second. Romantic solo concertos, on the other hand, preferred to introduce the soloist first for more dramatic effect, though the first movement often still stayed in sonata form. The other main difference between the first movement structures of the two concertos is that, in a Classical concerto, the movement would be rounded off soon after the soloist finishes the cadenza (virtuous solo bit, where the soloist gets to show off their skills), while in a Romantic concerto, the movement would carry on for a bit longer before finishing. Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto subverts the whole cadenza thing entirely, though, by simply not having a cadenza in the first movement at all. I suppose the whole movement is challenging enough for the pianist, so much so that a cadenza isn't all too necessary. That, or maybe Rachmaninov just thought that a cadenza wouldn't "fit," which is also fair enough.
Anyway. Analysis time. The work starts off in F minor for 8 bars (if you can really define a tonality with all of those accidentals changing) and a whole lot of "bell-like" chords. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that these "bell-like" chords hark back to Rachmaninov's involvement with the Church, though I'm not sure which Church exactly (I'm assuming the Russian Orthodox Church, just because he's Russian, but I could be totally wrong) and I can't remember where I read that. These chords are pretty big, covering a wide range, but Rachmaninov had a pretty big hand-span so he didn't need to roll them (though many pianists do have to). It crescendos gradually until the 8th bar where you hear the basic motif- A flat, F, G, C, or f, r, m, l in moveable doh, which is heard several other times throughout the work.
Now begins the first theme in C minor! This first theme can be divided into 2 sections, A and B. A goes from about 0:25 on the recording to 0:47, while B goes from 0:47 to 1:42. The soloist doesn't actually get to play the melody here, rather it plays a lot of broken chords while the strings and the clarinet (yay!) get the melody. (The clarinet only really gets the melody for part A, though. Aww.) After the first theme, there's a short transition passage from 1:42 to 1:58, featuring some stepwise descending chords in the strings and homophony (harmony built on block chords) reminiscent of Russian marching music. Now onto theme 2!
Theme 2 (1:58-3:39) is in E-flat Major, keeping with the tradition that sonata-form works with theme 1 in the minor key have theme 2 in the relative major key. Theme 2 is introduced by a "quasi-introduction ostinato figure" from the clarinets before the actual Theme 2 is introduced by the piano- yes, the piano's playing the melody this time! I have written on my score that theme 2 in this movement is also the same as the 2nd theme of the 2nd movement, but when I listened to the second movement I didn't notice the similarities so I guess I'll have to listen again. Theme 2 features some "quasi-stretto" or staggered entries (you'll find that whoever wrote the analysis guide for 3AB music seems to like the word "quasi"), such as between the cello and piano, or later between the clarinet/oboe and piano, which give the music a polyphonic texture. Also, as the theme gets repeated, it becomes thicker, played first relatively simply and then in octaves with denser chords and a busier harmony built on triplets rather than quavers. Finally, Transition 2, in C minor, occurs between 3:39 and 4:20 before the development commences.
I don't really want to go into the development (4:20-5:57) into too much detail, or I'll bore you to death if I haven't already. There's little snippets of themes all over the place, including that basic motif that I introduced at the beginning (that Ab, F, G, C one, remember? It's played in an assortment of different keys throughout the work though), so perhaps all I can say is, have fun playing "Spot the Theme." Actually, I've come up with one more thing to say, or one more list of things to say, and that's a list of fancy terms to help guide your listening if you're that way inclined.
Retrograde: Playing something back-to-front. Sometimes a whole melody or melodic fragment can be played in reverse, or sometimes a rhythm might be reversed. For example, a minim then a crotchet would be played crotchet then minim.
Sequential passages: Passages in which sequences occur, a sequence being a melodic fragment repeated over and over at different pitches.
Diminution: A melodic fragment played using shorter note values. For example, minims might become crotchets and crotchets might become quavers. There's a good example of this in the recapitulation played by the horn.
Cross-rhythms: Conflicting rhythms like triplets and quavers played at the same time. Pianists just hate this. (Actually there's some awful ones in the piano throughout this work- I recall seeing one section with triplets in one hand and quintuplets in the other!)
Pedal notes: Long notes held over other changes in harmony. Sometimes they can hint at a key change- there's a G at the end of the development that hints at the change to C minor (G is the dominant of C minor and normally dominant chords are used to aid a modulation).
Also pay attention to the way that tension is created through extreme dynamic changes (piano goes from p to fff towards the end of the development) and through chromaticism.
The recapitulation begins at about 5:57. 1A is played by the strings while the piano plays an elaborate form of the basic motif. Soon the piano comes in with 1B, which, according to my notes, is the only time that the soloist plays theme 1. Next the horn comes in with an augmented version of Theme 2 in A-flat Major. Augmentation is the opposite of diminution (it's in the list of definitions above)- the melody is played with longer note values. Soon the clarinet gets to play the basic motif, except it sounds more peaceful. Bonus points if you spotted that before reading this.
As I said before, the piano doesn't get a cadenza in this movement. Instead, it just gets an arpeggiated figure using an extreme range of pitch where it would normally get a cadenza before having to play that awful (awful to play, that is, not to listen to) triplet/quintuplet thing.
The coda starts at 8:58. It's marked on my score as meno mosso, but it's still reasonably fast and will build up in speed and volume. After some sustained chords in the horns and some double stopping in the strings, the whole movement finishes with some fast ascending scales and a very abrupt perfect cadence in C minor!
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