Description
There are certain pieces that are good enough to be scary – things in which a composer was clearly aiming for something difficult and ambitious, a work big and forbidding and unapologetic about its greatness, and knocked it out of the park. The Hammerklavier falls in this category, as does Liszt’s B minor. This concerto is one of the very, very few in its genre that joins them.
Three things set this concerto apart. The first is the obsessiveness (and efficiency) of its motivic writing, which reaches a level I don’t think any other concerto in the mainstream repertoire approaches. The first two bars of this work – before the piano enters – introduce four distinct motifs, three of which (a dotted rhythm and two melodic cells) end up generating a huge swath of the material in the movement (and well beyond). Most strikingly, the main theme of the last movement is built off nothing but the dotted timpani line pulsing beneath those opening strings. Rachmaninoff’s motivic manipulation here is significantly more free and sophisticated than in the 2nd PC – the entire first theme in particular is treated as a motivic repository that Rachmaninoff draws on in varied and unexpected ways. It's weird that this work has a reputation as overwritten, because there’s barely a bar that isn’t part of a bigger musical argument.
Second is the cyclic integration across this work. To wit: (1) The episodes in Mvt 2 are based on Mvt 1’s T1; (2) the development section of Mvt 3 develops the wrong movement – it’s built around Mvt 1, T2 (with one statement of Mvt 1, T1 thrown in for good measure); and (3) the second themes of Mvts 1 and 3 share the same descending melodic shape. What’s remarkable is not the bare fact of integration, but how organic and varied it is, from the numerous filigree transformations of Mvt 1, T2 in Mvt 3, to the way Mvt 1, T1 is incanted by so many instruments over the course of the work. There’s so much inventive overspill here that both second themes in the outer movements are presented in two variants: one rhythmic and chordal, and the other lyrical (another similarity between both movements).
Last is the way Rachmaninoff manages to set piano and orchestral textures against each other. The orchestral writing in the 4th PC and Rhapsody might be fizzier, but this work is where piano + orchestra timbres are exploited to the fullest. Think of all the astonishing contrasts: a Bachian toccata line in Mvt 1 against the strings’ long melody; modal piano arpeggios against T1 in the flute; the (very different, Ravelesque) toccata in Mvt 2 while against the woodwinds’ waltz; the intricate braids of Mvt 1, T2 in Mvt 3’s development set off against woodwind commentary, or in the recap against staccato strings. Even in the last movement’s climax, piano and orchestra start in unison but eventually diverge, the piano shrieking into its highest registers to become a musical lens flare – an ecstatic, semi-percussive, ultra-bright colouration of the orchestral line.
00:00 – Kocsis, Mvt 1
13:56 – Kocsis, Mvt 2
23:49 – Kocsis, Mvt 3
37:21 – Janis, Mvt 1
52:00 – Janis, Mvt 2
1:02:02 – Janis, Mvt 3
Two great performances. Kocsis picks a fast tempo and sticks with it, and shows how much you can accomplish with such a simple interpretive baseline. The opening has a nervous, even ominous quality; the development reaches painful intensity (7:21), and there is no sag in the passages leading into the cadenza; instead of your usual dreaminess you get something taut, attentive, even playful. The cadenza’s opening itself is so fleet it is hallucinatory, bits of the theme flaring and vanishing like flashes of a strobe. The insistence on keeping the same tempo even across different thematic areas gives the playing a sense of inevitability, but things never grow dull courtesy of superfine dynamic control (8:25, 25:44 – those tenutos) and phrasing that’s often surprisingly playful (26:57 – agogic accents). Dense piano textures are ploughed through with astonishing clarity, yet in huge climaxes like 20:11 the piano sound is thick enough to compete with the orchestra (without the cheat of close miking).
Janis is also fleet, but the emphasis here is on variety and texture. There is astonishing detail in the orchestra (the Boston Symphony under Munch), and a lot of pointing up of contrapuntal interaction between the piano and orchestra (38:20 onward). Right from the opening the woodwinds have much more presence than usual (bassoon line at 37:29; oboe at 37:48), and in playful passages they add a huge amount of colour (the warbling after the trumpet at 38:19, 1:10:34). The brass also shines, probably no more than in the epic trumpet belting out the fanfare theme from 1:03:08. Janis’ playing, unlike Kocsis, tends to differentiate themes by tempo, and features some moments of unexpected freedom and intimacy, as in the phrasing at 41:27, or the aural heat shimmer at 1:06:29. Rarely has any recording felt this alert, alive.