Rachmaninoff makes the cut

Synopsis

Russian émigré composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff was himself the soloist on today’s date in 1927 in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

Rachmaninoff had premiered his Concerto No. 3 in New York in 1909, and he’d been thinking about writing another one for over a decade. In the meantime, his life had been disrupted by both the Russian Revolution and the exhausting business of earning a living as a touring virtuoso pianist. In 1926, he finally felt he could afford to take some time off and put a Piano Concerto No. 4 down on paper.

In its original form, it turned out to be a much longer work than even Rachmaninoff thought practical. He joked to a friend that its movements would have to be “performed on successive nights, like Wagner’s Ring operas.”

He made a number of cuts before the Philadelphia premiere, but even so, the new work was not well received, and so he kept cutting. Audiences and critics still remained cool, and Rachmaninoff eventually shelved the work for a time — quite a time. In 1941 he prepared a “final cut” version, which ended up considerably shorter than his other three Piano Concertos, and recorded it with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Music Played in Today's Program

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 4; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Cleveland Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 458 930

On This Day

Births

• 1844 - Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, in Tikhvin (Julian Date: Mar. 6)

• 1882 - Italian composer and first editor of the collected works of Monteverdi and Vivaldi, Gian Francesco Malipiero, in Venice

Deaths

• 1994 - American composer Williams Bergsma, 72, in Seattle

Premieres

• 1902 - Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) for string sextet, in Vienna, by the Rosé Quartet and two extra players

• 1904 - Liadov: symphonic poem Baba Yaga, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Mar.5)

• 1927 - Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4, (original version) in Philadelphia, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski and the composer as soloist. On the same program was the premiere performance of Rachmaninoff’s Three Russian Songs for chorus and orchestra (dedicated to Stokowski). A revised (and much shortened) version of this concerto premiered in Philadelphia on October 17, 1941, with Eugene Ormandy conducting and the composer again as soloist.

• 1949 - Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 4 (The Cycle), in New York City

• 1965 - Broadway premiere of Richard Rodgers: musical Do I Hear a Waltz?, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical had its trail-run premiere in New Haven on Feb. 1, 1965.

• 1970 - Roger Sessions: Rhapsody for orchestra, in Baltimore

• 1994 - James Mobberley: Piano Concerto, at the Lyric Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, by the Kansas City Symphony, with Richard Cass the soloist and Bill McGlaughlin conducting