157 honeymoon. Rachmaninov wrote that these songs were written in a hurry and were not complete, but he preferred to finish them quickly and devote his time to new compositions. The song “Lilacs” was written to words by Ekaterina Beketova, a Russian poet of the eighteenth century. The poem paints a beautiful picture of nature with bunches of lilac flowers as a place where happiness exists. The atmosphere in the piece is very optimistic and uplifting and stands in contrast to the melancholy characteristic of his vocal music. Despite the simplicity of the song, based almost entirely on a varied repetition of a three-note motif of the vocal line, it is one of Rachmaninov’s most delicate and intimate works. It is one of only two songs that Rachmaninov arranged for solo piano and he often performed it as an encore. The arrangement written by him in 1913 is much more complex than the original song, and is polyphonic, with cadenzas and codas, which add color and flow, without detracting from the relaxed atmosphere. Prelude op. 32 No. 8 in A minor Rachmaninov probably drew his inspiration for composing the preludes from Chopin’s 24 preludes, but unlike Chopin who composed them in a relatively short time, it took no less than 18 years for Rachmaninov to complete his 24 preludes, in two volumes: the first, op. 23 which included 10 preludes, and the second op. 32 which included 13, and another one written separately back in 1892, the one that brought the young composer immediate success. The second collection of Preludes op. 32 was composed by Rachmaninov in less than two months, between August 23 and September 10, 1910, during one of the most productive periods of his life. He even composed three of them in just one day. These works represent the more advanced and harmonic style that Rachmaninov developed in his middle years. The Prelude op. 32 No. 8 in A minor is actually an etude that displays Rachmaninov’s temperament. Prelude op. 23 No. 10 in G flat major Rachmaninov composed the collection of Preludes op. 23 over a period of about two years and the last of them, No. 10 in G flat major, was completed in 1903 after his marriage to Natalia Alexandrovna Satina and near the birth of their first daughter. For Rachmaninov this was a period of creative awakening. This prelude is the shortest and simplest of the collection, and is a lyrical nocturne with a melodic charm full of emotion yet extraordinary refinement. 5 Etudes-Tableaux op. 39: No. 1,2,4,5,9 Rachmaninov composed two Etudes-Tableaux collections. He composed the first collection, op. 33, in 1911, about a year after he completed writing the collection of preludes, op. 32. He completed the second collection, op. 39, about six years later, before he had to leave Russia with his family. The Etudes-Tableaux op. 39 are slightly longer and perhaps even somewhat more challenging than those of op. 33, although the poetic aspect in them is present and prominent. Each of the collections was supposed to include nine pieces, but close to the publication date of op. 33, Rachmaninov decided not to publish three, so that in fact only six were published. Later, the publishers brought back two pieces to the op. 33 collection and the third that was left out of the collection was published as a single piece. Today op. 33 includes eight pieces and op. 39 includes nine. The ‘Etudes-Tableaux’ are similar in nature to the Preludes op. 32, but the powerful mood found in the ‘EtudesTableaux’ gives them a more “story-telling” and pictorial touch. This explains the choice of the name (“pictureetudes”) for these works. Similar to the piano etudes of Chopin, Liszt and Scriabin, Rachmaninov used these works to explore and utilize a wide variety of themes, textures and sounds in modern piano playing and not for A Tribute Recital
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