Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How great is Rachmaninov as a composer?

Eh? Bach's vocal music is probably the single greatest body of work in music history.

I look at entire output if you're asking about "greatness as a composer", but I notice you did narrow consideration of Rachmaninoff down to his piano writing. It's understood though that on a piano forum such lists are going to be heavy with Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and others while a conductor or violinist might not include those in his/her top ten. It's going to be subjective anyway of course. For piano then, Chopin would be at the top of the list for me. Rachmaninoff would still be middle of the pack (nothing personal).

I think trying to order composers precisely is futile, but here is my top-20 list in chronological order:

Bach
Handel
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Chopin
Schumann
Wagner
Verdi
Brahms
Dvorak
Tchaikovsky
Mahler
Sibelius
Debussy
Ravel
Bartok
Stravinsky
—————

The remaining 1st tier composers, in approximate chronological order:

Schutz
Monteverdi
Buxtehude
Corelli
Pachelbel
Telemann
Rameau
Scarlatti
Liszt
Grieg
Saint-Saens
Smetana
Puccini
Bruckner
Shostakovich
Prokofiev
Rachmaninov
Scriabin

I tried to synthesize contributions to music and aesthetics in some qualitative, imperfect way. I‘m sure there will be quibbles with my choices. The impact of Rameau’s publication of “Treatise on Harmony” in 1722 assured his place on one of my two lists.

No Sweelinck?

BTW, probably the only reason I know of him is I used to be in a crowd that had some organists.

Mark - Did you see my follow-up post regarding Austin?

Sure (and thanks for that too!) -- but you made me go back and look to see if you'd said something that I missed about Sweelinck.

It is hard to judge his body of work because 70% or more of it was lost. His influence on keyboard technique and the formation of the north German school of organists is indisputable. His compositional influence was certainly significant.

Rachmaninov was undoubtedly a good composer. His non-piano work is often left by the wayside because it wasn't particularly groundbreaking in comparison to what was going on at the time.

Rachmaninov just about stretched the Romantic genre to about as far as it could go without falling into self-parody or poor taste.

I was expecting to see a lot more big Rach fans on this thread saying how much they love his music and that he definitely rates in the top ten for the quality of his piano music. I got the idea for the thread when I saw some recital program(can't remember which one) with some Rachmaninov on it yet again.

It seems to me that his popularity on programs is growing in the last 10-15 years but that is not based on any facts. Does anyone know if there is some database of composers on recital programs or on recordings? I remember seeing something like that on some thread but don't remember the site which may have been for all classical concerts and not just piano recitals or concerto performances. I think Beethoven was #1 in that listing.

Krystian Zimerman is still cogitating on the emotional challenges (not technical, of course - he can easily swallow it whole) of Rach 3:

"I'm not so much in favor of complete recordings, and the four Rachmaninov concertos were never intended to be a cycle. I have great respect for No.3, and at the moment I don't feel ready to put my thoughts about it into a recording. I feel the interpretation would be enormously complex to work out - it's so laden with emotion that it tears me to pieces every time I hear it.
As I said, you don't play Rachmaninov concertos, you live them; and this one could almost be life-threatening . . ."

.......which he didn't accord to any of the Beethoven or Brahms concertos, nor indeed any other work.

The depth of emotion, his Russian soul (as Ashkenazy puts it) is what makes Rachmaninov special, not the technical complexity nor all those intricate inner voices that abound in his piano music. One hears Russian Orthodox Church bells and chants (including in Rach 3) and an inner longing for his homeland, and........yes, a soulfulness and yearning quality that makes his music irresistible to great pianists, and renders the less great ones - like Brendel - unable to understand the meaning behind all those notes, and attempting to justify their incomprehension by being publicly sniffy about it......

I loved Alexander Romanovsky's fiery performance of the 3rd at the 2011 Tchaikovsky competition.

I also used to love the Andrei Gavrilov/Alexander Lazarev recording I had on LP, which I must have worn out, but I haven't heard it in a long time.

I think too many performances veer into soppy sentimentality. It doesn't make sense to me like that.

I also think Ayako Uehara's performance of the Pag. Rhapsody is fantastic. Why isn't she better known?

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_F2HvUsjFY

I wore out my cassette tape of the same fabulous recording too (the cadenza is truly astonishing, and not just for his karate chops), and am amazed it's never been transferred to CD, but YT has come to the rescue....... .....and it's now safely in my iTunes and iPod.

It's also nice to hear the wobbly (vibrato-laden) Soviet horns, the likes of which will never be heard again......

Great thanks! I'll enjoy that.

I'd have him in top five. Although having said that, I don't like it when his music is played in too much of a sweet way. I think it has to have a certain cold hard stoicism about it to balance the romantic content. I think this about a lot of the Romantics, as early as late Beethoven or Schubert as well. To put it another way, when played right, the combination of pain and beauty is what it's all about to me, whereas a lot of players seem to miss out the pain and over-emphasise the beauty.

I like Lugansky's Rachmininoff. Not afraid to whack the piano, and actually keep time without lurching all over the place, but simultaneously giving it the emotional content that it requires. Ashkenazy would probably be a good one as well. Not heard Zimerman play Rachmaninoff actually, and I like his Chopin and Beethoven, as he plays them in the way I describe above. At least to my ear anyway. But of course, this is all heavily subjective. I personally think that Mozart should not be so high up, so there you go.

I agree with that Rachmaninoff got caned a bit in the 40's films, but one has to step away from that and remember our context properly. I think the same thing is going on at the moment on tv, I seem to remember Chopin Nocturnes being use for things like Cat Litter. One must avoid associating the two! In fact this makes me rather angry when I see this done. I won't mention Barry Manilow, oh whoops there it is.

Same for Rachmaninoff, one has to remember the context the music was written in. Not start thinking of films. This can actually be quite tough to do when one is used to associating the two. Think about when you hear any film music (Blue Danube etc) and then you hear it live, and first thing you think about is the film.

Sorry I used the double FF spelling, this is obviously a V spelling thread but can't be bothered to go back and edit them all.

I am a big Rachmaninoff fan. I love his music. It doesn't much matter to me how - great- he was or is. I just love his music.

I'm assuming you mean Cat Litter commercials - correct?

Haha yeah. The alternative would be worryingly nefarious I apologise for my lazy wording.

To make the alternative work, the Nocturne scores would first need to be shredded. Unfortunately, that's what initially came to mind when I read your lazy wording....and I thought SACRILEGE !!!!!

And to make maters worse, the average fussy cat would probably only accept the originals.

Let's just hope that people don't start panic-buying cat litter.