Ravinia 2025 Issue 5

abilities. Professional opportunities and com- missions continued to arise. Several orchestras expressed interest in a second piano concerto, and Rachmaninoff even promised one to the London press. The Russian operatic bass Feodor Chaliapin hired his friend as a rehearsal accom- panist. In the summer of 1900, Rachmaninoff traveled to Italy for Chaliapin’s scheduled per- formances in Boito’s Mefistofele at La Scala. Even these diversionary months did not satis- fy the dejected composer, as he lamented to Mikhail Slonov, “I am not doing very much work but I am working regularly. I live restful- ly and quietly, and that’s pretty boring.” Noth- ing seemed to cure his melancholy. That is, until members of the Satin family, his relatives (Natalya Satina, Rachmaninoff ’s future wife, was his first cousin) and longtime friends, suggested a visit to Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a neurol- ogist with expertise in the new discipline of hypnosis therapy. Daily sessions with Dahl produced immediate results. Rachmaninoff composed the final two movements of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor during the late summer and autumn of 1900: “The material grew in bulk, and new musical ideas began to stir within me—more than enough for my concerto.” Though still lacking an opening movement, Rachmaninoff introduced the new piece in December. The following October, the full work received its world premiere in Moscow. This time, critical response was overwhelmingly favorable. Dahl’s treatment had resurrected Rachmaninoff, the composer. In gratitude, he dedicated the con- certo to the physician. Rachmaninoff inaugurated his concerto with al- ternating massive piano chords and bass-regis- ter pitches. This opening passage impressed at least one other musician, Nikolai Medtner, as innately Russian: “From the first bell stroke, you feel the figure of Russia rising up to her full Dr. Nikolai Dahl height.” The piano subsequently operates as a brilliant counterpoint to the orchestral theme. Conceiving the Moderato last permitted subtle motivic integration. The contrasting theme of- fers melodic fragments more completely real- ized in coming movements. There is no solo ca- denza. Tin Pan Alley composer and arranger Ted Mossman transformed a melody from this movement into the song “Ever and Forever.” The oldest musical material in the concerto evolved into the exquisite Adagio sostenuto . Rachmaninoff revived a piano figuration from his Romance for six-hands piano, written in 1890 for the three Skalon sisters. The clarinet melody, eventually appropriated by the piano, is among the composer’s most familiar. In recent decades, this tune has made its way twice to the pop charts. Eric Carmen, a pianist trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music, inserted a few Rachmaninoff phrases in his hit single “All by Myself,” from his 1975 eponymous album. The French-Canadian singer Celine Dion released her immensely popular cover of Carmen’s song in 1996 on her Falling into You disc. One important motive in the Allegro scherzando originated in, of all places, the sacred “concerto” Oh, Mother of God Perpetually Praying for unac- companied chorus (1893). This oddly misplaced idea emerges in the staccato keyboard theme. According to an unauthenticated statement in Serov’s biography of the composer, Nikita Mo- rozov gave the contrasting theme to Rachmani- noff; this is the same melody anticipated in pre- vious movements. Again, Ted Mossman worked his pop-music magic by arranging portions of this melody as the Frank Sinatra hit “Full Moon and Empty Arms.” Various cadenza-like flour- ishes perhaps capture the composer’s spirits again taking flight. Serge Rachmaninoff JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897) Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68 Scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings Never has a first symphony suffered the oppres- sive anticipation and extremes of revulsion and admiration that confronted Brahms’s initial ef- fort. Robert Schumann raised symphonic ex- pectations in his article “New Paths” (1853). As a young pianist, wrote Schumann, Brahms drew listeners into “wondrous regions” and his sona- tas were likened to “veiled symphonies.” The es- say closed with a benediction: “Later, if he will wave with his magic wand to where massed forces, in the chorus and orchestra, lend their strength, there lie before us still more glimpses into the secrets of the spirit world.” Brahms did not lightly venture into the sym- phonic realm dominated by Beethoven’s nine monuments. Two serenades, a piano concer- to, and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn provided exercise in orchestral writing. To his friend Hermann Levi, Brahms confessed a re- spectful awe of Beethoven: “You don’t know what it is like always to hear that giant march- ing along behind me.” For 21 years (1855–76) the cautious composer shaped thematic ideas for his Symphony No. 1. Tinkering continued until days before the first performance, with revisions and abridgements to the middle movements. The orchestra of the Grand Duke of Baden and conductor Felix Otto Dessoff gave the first per- formance in Karlsruhe on November 4, 1876. The controversy surrounding Brahms’s first symphony intensified when Hans von Bülow dubbed it “the Tenth,” the heir to Beethoven’s legacy. (Bülow later formulated the “three Bs of German music,” placing Brahms alongside Bach and Beethoven.) Many musicians rankled at this Johannes Brahms RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUG. 4 – AUG. 17, 2025 80