My Thoughts

This is a good concerto. I only wish it had been played more. A near-death Rachmaninoff is supposed to have requested that Vladimir Horowitz perform this concerto, but alas, Horowitz stuck with the Third. Perhaps it all works out in the end, however; Horowitz's student, the great Byron Janis has made two VERY good recordings of this concerto which are quite satisfying. Rachmaninoff himself did record all four of his concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody as well. Rachmaninoff was 66 years old at the time of his recording of this concerto. What is there to say? As I type these words I listen to him in the first movement cadenza (an excellent passage of music, in my opinion at least equal in effectiveness to the cadenza from the same movement of the Third Concerto.) It makes me float off to my all-too-common day dream about where I would go with a time machine and some modern DTS 7.1 recording equipment. . . Imagine Rachmaninoff/Ormandy/Philadelphia playing Rachmaninoff in SURROUND SOUND. . . . drool. I want to go THERE when I die.

Rachmaninoff's First and Fourth concertos share the fact that they were revised by the composer from their original versions. The first concerto is actually Rachmaninoff's opus 1. This was composed while he was still a student in the conservatory. Modeled very closely after the Grieg Concerto, later in life Rachmaninoff was unhappy with the setting of this work. In 1917, he completely revised the work. Much of the concerto was re-scored and many sections were excised and rewritten entirely. I'm sure most people would agree that the revision is a vast improvement over the original. Some artists have chosen to perform the original version though it seems usually to be for historical reasons over reasons of preference.

Known recordings of the original version - If you know of any additional recordings of the original version please visit the Performance Review page and add that recording to this database.

Revisions

There is something that Rachmaninoff cut from the original version in that wonderful first movement cadenza that I sometimes miss hearing in the revision. The highlighted areas of the revision are where Rachmaninoff replaced some runs with the more chordal version we see below in the original version. The harmonic nature is chaged somewhat in the revision also. There are sound clips below to provide a more vivid comparison.

Original Version
Revised Version

Humoresque

I've always gotten a kick out of the similarity between this climax of the third movement of this concerto and the Humoresque, op. 10, no. 5 (which Rachmaninoff had also revised from an earlier form.) Below are two examples, the first from the concerto and the second from the Humoresque.