The teenaged Sergei Prokofiev, already a discerning pianist and critic, described Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto as “a very beautiful and famous concerto … It begins with chords, and then a broad theme do-re-do.” The concerto does open dramatically, with a series of rich piano solo chords tolling like bells for eight measures in F major, before the orchestra enters with the surging main do-re-do theme in C minor. Another Russian pianist, Nikolai Medtner, called this dynamic, sobbing motif “one of the most strikingly Russian of themes. There is no ethnographic trimming here, no dressing up, no decking out in national dress, no folksong intonation, and yet every time, from the first bell stroke, you feel the figure of Russia rising up to her full height.”
Oddly, Rachmaninoff completed the last two movements of the concerto first and performed them at a concert in Moscow in December 1900. He finished the first movement in April 1901 and played the solo part at the premiere of the full concerto the following autumn. Its enthusiastic reception roused the famously moody composer out of his depression following the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony in 1897. Rachmaninoff dedicated the concerto to Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who had helped him overcome his crippling feelings of inferiority and insecurity. The work firmly established his reputation in Russia and enjoyed immediate success abroad, too, both with and without the composer at the keyboard.
The high level of inspiration evident in the opening bars never flags. A second, more lyrical theme provides contrast, along with a seven-note march motif developed dramatically in a climactic maestoso section, when the piano thunders rhythmic chords over the main theme in the orchestra. The notable absence of a cadenza for the soloist creates a strong sense of flowing continuity. The first movement’s themes reappear later at strategic moments.
In the second movement, the mood changes, dominated by a slow, pastoral theme, but with surprisingly offbeat stresses in the accompaniment. A fast, marching theme opens the finale, before Rachmaninoff introduces what became one of his most popular melodies in the oboe and violas: a sad, swooping theme that is languid and exotically colored in character (it would later inspire Eric Carmen to write the 1975 power ballad “All by Myself”). Passed several times almost unchanged between soloist and orchestra, it yields to a breathless coda that breaks the dreamy mood. Throughout, soloist and orchestra are harmonious partners, never competitors, and the supply of slightly melancholy (but never lugubrious) lyricism seems endless.
Long before Carmen’s hit climbed the pop charts, the concerto had entered the realm of popular culture. Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman adapted the last movement’s second theme into the croony song “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” recorded by the young Frank Sinatra, and numerous film scores—including Grand Hotel, Brief Encounter, and The Seven Year Itch—also feature its music.
—Harlow Robinson
Alberto Ginastera’s 1941 ballet was composed the same year the Argentinian composer met his North American contemporary Aaron Copland, who was touring South America. Estancia was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein, who had commissioned Copland’s Billy the Kid for his Ballet Caravan, which staged its 1938 premiere but folded before Estancia could be produced. The plot, scenes, and texture of the piece are derived from the poem Martín Fierro by José Hernández, written in the 1870s as a nationalist expression of the gaucho and a repudiation of the changes to rural life brought about by political and military struggle. As important as the substance of the poem is the style. As noted by translators C. E. Ward and Kate Ward Kavanagh, “Hernández’s poem aimed to speak to the country people in their own language about their own troubles. It tells the adventures and opinions of an archetypal gaucho suffering the hardships and injustice of the times: From a contented life working on a ranch, the unsuspecting hero is press-ganged into the ill-treated frontier militia; he deserts to find his home abandoned and his family lost, becomes an outlaw, and finally escapes across the frontier … It is written in the words, images, and proverbs of the gauchos—almost a sub-language of Spanish: humorous, contentious, and lyrical, in rhymed stanzas supposedly sung to the guitar, the gauchos’ traditional instrument.”
The plot of Ginastera’s ballet does not follow Fierro’s full poetic journey; rather, the composer incorporated lines that express the varied episodes in a gaucho’s life throughout a single day. The primary plot element concerns the romance of a city boy who falls in love with a country girl and overcomes her skepticism by proving his skills as a horseman and dancer. However, the deeper theme is the rhythm of the day—an element that, for the composer, united human with landscape: “Whenever I have crossed the Pampa or have lived in it for a time, my spirit felt itself inundated by changing impressions, now joyful, now melancholy, some full of euphoria and others replete with a profound tranquility, produced by its limitless immensity and by the transformation that the countryside undergoes in the course of a day.”
The ballet’s dances reveal the variety of sources, social functions, and musical styles that capture the spectrum of experience over a day. The serene “Danza del trigo” (“Wheat Dance”) uses solo flute and violin to evoke the morning setting and a dance shaped by song. “Los trabajadores agricolas” (“The Land Workers”) depicts the laborers who come into town. You can hear the heaviness and downward sweep of their steps as they alternate triple and duple rhythms of the malambo, an Argentine folk dance. Brass gestures capture the strength of motion before giving way to spiky woodwinds. Modern listeners might find the melodic shapes and timbres more cosmopolitan in nature. “Los peones de hacienda” (“The Ranch Hands”) entertain themselves and the townsfolk with playful woodwind footsteps, brass exclamations, and timpani flourishes. The “Danza final” (“Final Dance”) returns to the spirit and rhythm of the malambo. The highly syncopated patterns depict the sharp gestures involving hands and feet, building toward a frenetic conclusion.
—Susan Key