Favourite Rach concerto?

  • 1 in F# minor
  • 2 in C minor
  • 3 in D minor
  • 4 in G minor
  • 5 in A minor (RhapPag)

0 voters

:sunglasses:

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Haha, I love that piece.

3 is the more ambitious work, but 2 has such a concentrated intensity of expression.

1 is simply the one which is most in line with my preferred idiom. Plus it has a cracking opening 88 statement. He was 18 when he wrote it but it makes da :chop: pair look like amateur juvenalia imo.

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If da Warsaw conc rips off :rocky:, how about ripping it off a touch? :stuck_out_tongue:

I didnā€™t mean to, honest.

dayum, dat sum enjoyable sheeyat tru :whale:

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2 > 4 > 3 > PagRappah > 1

Yeah, probably 1 tied with 3.

Haha ma fav mvmt ov any Rock conc iz da

2nd mvmt ov da 3rd conc

da oddezt iz da 4th conc which iz brilliant but hardah to interpret, ezpecially emotionally becuz all da otha concz are ztraight forward but da 4th feelz a bit coldah n mo detached

I donā€™t consider any of them ā€œfirst rateā€, btw.

Tru

If I had da tech, I think Iā€™d most like to play #2. Tho Iā€™d play most other cuncz first befo doing :rocky:

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I think 2 and 3 are top tier. If theyā€™re good enough for the likes of Richter and Horowitz, theyā€™re good enough for me.

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I love how you always bring in the opinion of a ā€œwell known nameā€ as if music does not speak for itself, or any opinion needs to be validated by matching somebody of higher credibility (would the kiddie rapist Pletnev be ok tho?)

Rachmaninoffā€™s compositions are pretty good on the surface but if I want to listen to B-list repertoire, which it is, how about something which is a bit less vanilla, like, some Godowsky or even the Prokofiev concertos (they are vomit but at least sound innovative on the surface).

Honestly, after Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and late Scriabin, few things measure up.

Oh, and Richter never played the Rachmaninoff 3rd concerto

:fire:

The education of the general public is lacking when they readily lap up the Rach ā€œclassical music liteā€ melodies :man_facepalming: . Not again. No thanks.

I got the Rach 1 (revised version) in my rep. Cool sounding trash.

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Itā€™s decent for a composer-pianist. :fire:

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One GUD thing about the Rach concertos is the composer himself recorded themā€¦ certainly puts the urtext fanboys to shame :sunglasses:

But yeah, yet another reason not to play em. :sunglasses:

Humble yourself. Your opinions are just your opinions.

Yes, I canā€™t discuss pieces on the level of form and harmonic ingenuity on level of someone who has studied music for 25 years. I have listened to music for a good 15 years, however, and Iā€™m fairly sharp and fairly well read, so I feel I have a right to an opinion. I judge music on a broader, associative scale. Rachmaninov had a very distinct voice and he had something to say. A lot of ā€œintellectualā€ composers hide behind theory to mask the fact that they have nothing to say.

Yes, I do bring up the opinion of Sviatoslav Richter who I admire tremendously as a musician and pianist and above all an artist. He loved Rach 2 and performed it for most of his career. And, as we know, he didnā€™t pander to what the audience wants to hear. Rach 3 doesnā€™t need my support either. The number of legendary pianists who have given great performances of this glorious work thatā€™s full of pathos, tenderness, and above all human warmth speak for themselves.

Also, I brought up pianists that I respect to support my views as shorthand. At the moment I wasnā€™t in the mood to right a dissertation. I mean, look at your response? Nothing substantive was uttered about music. You simply appealed to your education and made sweeping statements about the worth of various composers.

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I honestly think :rocky: concerti are hampered a bit in terms of ā€˜criticalā€™ assessment by being that bit too ā€˜accessibleā€™ and visceral. I kind of disagree with da TM here and raise the ante with my opinion that da :pimp: concerti are well, even cleverly written, but innately sumwut disposable and really not of the first tier (2>1>3 btw). Da thotentanz, on the other hand, is perfection both in terms of form and pianistic affect. A tru masterwork.

Imo.

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Iā€™ll add to that my belief that Liszt was handicapped compositionally by not being a great melodist. Often I sense that his melodies arrive from the harmonies, when it should be the other way round. When Iā€™m trying to argue this case I use the opening of da lezbodream as an example. Rach, on the other hand, had a gift for finding long, sweeping melodies. Itā€™s the one formal blemish I find within da :pimp: output. Heretically :sunglasses:

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hahaha tha piu vivo in rach 3 iz zum of tha moz wikid piano writin :rocky:

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