Question regarding Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3???

[deckard1]

Well, something like that. I'm not an expert on the geography of LA. Googling leads me to this fact:

'Igor Stravinsky's Los Angeles address (1260 North Wetherly Drive, in West Hollywood) [was] a mere 7.9 miles from Arnold Schoenberg (116 Rockingham Ave., in Brentwood)' 

and this cool map of Schoenberg's LA:

http://www.thekentstudios.com/Resources/SchoMap.pdf

Wow! Gershwin too! I had no idea. Looks like I am going to have to take a drive and check out the different homes. Thanks for the cool map! 

[listener]

RACH. 3 seems like an endurance contest with another cadenza just as the finish line is in sight.  RACH.  2 became a popular hit for its use in the David Lean film Brief Encounter and the extraction from the second movement of the tune for the song Full Moon and Empty Arms.

[(poco) Sforzando]

All the above is true, and if you look just at the brief score excerpt above, you'll also see extremely complicated counterpoint with cross-rhythms and multiple voices in both hands. Plus of course you have the problem of needing to engage an orchestra if you want to play the thing. I think I'll pull the score down from the shelf to see if I can find any other challenges not yet mentioned.

[B_cereus]

Greetings!

Take a look at the score: and yes, Rachmaninov had large hands, and so at times the spread of some chords may be wide.

https://www.youtube.com/v/aSXtXLAVgkE

Why did Rachmaninov dedicate his 3rd piano concerto to Josef Hofmann - who famously had small hands? :-/

And did Hofmann not play it because he wasn't able?

[deckard1]

Why did Rachmaninov dedicate his 3rd piano concerto to Josef Hofmann - who famously had small hands? :-/

And did Hofmann not play it because he wasn't able?

I can't answer your actual question, but, I do know that Hofmann turned the offer from Rachmaninoff (to play his 3rd piano concerto publicly) down stating that 'it wasn't for him [Hofmann].' Maybe Hofmann was fearful of the piece. Just a guess on my part...of course, what do I know? I am just a mere mortal.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Why did Rachmaninov dedicate his 3rd piano concerto to Josef Hofmann - who famously had small hands? :-/

And did Hofmann not play it because he wasn't able?

I wouldn't obsess too much about large hands or small hands. What matters is the flexibility of the hands, as a piece like Rach 3 forces the pianist to shift hand position almost constantly, and that can be extremely fatiguing. As for chords, even those requiring large intervals of a tenth or more can be arpeggiated with a touch of pedal; I would say a large hand is of greater benefit in something like the overall much simpler piano part to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, where chords of a tenth in both hands must be struck staccato and without arpeggiation.

I cannot however agree with the poster above who considers Rach 3 less difficult (at least technically) than the Beethoven Hammerklavier. That sonata was extraordinarily difficult for its time, and still remains very awkward to play in spots, but the two inner movements are technically easy, and in the outer movements the technical challenges are much more modest than much of what you'd find in Rachmaninoff at his most punishing. But I don't know if the poster who made that claim is a pianist, and it's often true that passages that sound difficult to the listener may not be quite as hard as ones that go by unnoticed. (I've just been spending a lot of time with the Brahms 1st Piano Quartet, for example, and measures 14-16 of the third movement place the hands into painful contortions that you'd never suspect from listening, and which can probably be solved only by rapid silent changes of fingers on the keys, or by slight breaks in the prescribed legato.)

ETA: And please, BTW, don't jump on me when I say the middle movements of the Hammerklavier are technically "easy"; of course they're not for the beginning pianist, but there's nothing in them that should daunt a capable player after 2-3 years of piano study. Of course the question of what is technically easy or not is highly relative. Charles Rosen made the point that Liszt, for all his difficulty, is always gratifying to play, while Chopin sometimes forces the hand into painful gyrations. Nielsen is not a composer one thinks of for his piano music, but when reading his big Chaconne at the piano some years back, I was pleased by how well his piano writing fits the hands.

[amw]

I wouldn't obsess too much about large hands or small hands. What matters is the flexibility of the hands, as a piece like Rach 3 forces the pianist to shift hand position almost constantly, and that can be extremely fatiguing. As for chords, even those requiring large intervals of a tenth or more can be arpeggiated with a touch of pedal; I would say a large hand is of greater benefit in something like the overall much simpler piano part to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, where chords of a tenth in both hands must be struck staccato and without arpeggiation.

I cannot however agree with the poster above who considers Rach 3 less difficult (at least technically) than the Beethoven Hammerklavier. That sonata was extraordinarily difficult for its time, and still remains very awkward to play in spots, but the two inner movements are technically easy, and in the outer movements the technical challenges are much more modest than much of what you'd find in Rachmaninoff at his most punishing. But I don't know if the poster who made that claim is a pianist, and it's often true that passages that sound difficult to the listener may not be quite as hard as ones that go by unnoticed. (I've just been spending a lot of time with the Brahms 1st Piano Quartet, for example, and measures 14-16 of the third movement place the hands into painful contortions that you'd never suspect from listening, and which can probably be solved only by rapid silent changes of fingers on the keys, or by slight breaks in the prescribed legato.)

ETA: And please, BTW, don't jump on me when I say the middle movements of the Hammerklavier are technically "easy"; of course they're not for the beginning pianist, but there's nothing in them that should daunt a capable player after 2-3 years of piano study. Of course the question of what is technically easy or not is highly relative. Charles Rosen made the point that Liszt, for all his difficulty, is always gratifying to play, while Chopin sometimes forces the hand into painful gyrations. Nielsen is not a composer one thinks of for his piano music, but when reading his big Chaconne at the piano some years back, I was pleased by how well his piano writing fits the hands.

I'm thinking about the outer movements of the Hammerklavier mostly; as well as Beethoven's original metronome and pedal markings, which must be adhered to. The sonata requires a very dry, harsh sound with minimal pedal outside of the places Beethoven specifically indicated it, which of course makes its difficult passages... more difficult. Rachmaninov usually calls for Chopin-style 'harmonic pedals' which give the pianist more leeway.

The contrapuntal writing is the big difficulty (the three voices of the fugue must retain perfect clarity and equanimity for example), and there are also an enormous number of blind faith leaps and awkward hand-crossings. Not to mention wide staccato chords that can be extremely problematic for people with small hands (starting in the very first bar). I think Rachmaninov's writing, however difficult, is supremely pianistic and rewarding to play; the Beethoven, correctly played, sounds unpianistic and hurts the hands. It is this stretching of both instrument and performer that causes the chief difficulty. Rach 3 seems to focus more on exploring the piano's capabilities rather than its limits. (Rach 2 is probably more difficult in that respect, actually.)

Also I am somewhat basing it on that whilst I've heard many performances of Rach 3 that display supreme mastery over its challenges, starting with a recording by a certain S. Rachmaninov, I've never heard a satisfactory performance of the Hammerklavier. >.>

[Cato]

I wouldn't obsess too much about large hands or small hands. What matters is the flexibility of the hands, as a piece like Rach 3 forces the pianist to shift hand position almost constantly, and that can be extremely fatiguing. As for chords, even those requiring large intervals of a tenth or more can be arpeggiated with a touch of pedal; I would say a large hand is of greater benefit in something like the overall much simpler piano part to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, where chords of a tenth in both hands must be struck staccato and without arpeggiation.

Ruth Laredo delivered a classic set of recordings of the Scriabin sonatas, and I recall something about her hands being so quick that she arpeggiated chords, which her hands could not handle, but the ear heard the chords as written, not as arpeggios.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'm thinking about the outer movements of the Hammerklavier mostly; as well as Beethoven's original metronome and pedal markings, which must be adhered to. The sonata requires a very dry, harsh sound with minimal pedal outside of the places Beethoven specifically indicated it, which of course makes its difficult passages... more difficult. Rachmaninov usually calls for Chopin-style 'harmonic pedals' which give the pianist more leeway.

The contrapuntal writing is the big difficulty (the three voices of the fugue must retain perfect clarity and equanimity for example), and there are also an enormous number of blind faith leaps and awkward hand-crossings. Not to mention wide staccato chords that can be extremely problematic for people with small hands (starting in the very first bar). I think Rachmaninov's writing, however difficult, is supremely pianistic and rewarding to play; the Beethoven, correctly played, sounds unpianistic and hurts the hands. It is this stretching of both instrument and performer that causes the chief difficulty. Rach 3 seems to focus more on exploring the piano's capabilities rather than its limits. (Rach 2 is probably more difficult in that respect, actually.)

Also I am somewhat basing it on that whilst I've heard many performances of Rach 3 that display supreme mastery over its challenges, starting with a recording by a certain S. Rachmaninov, I've never heard a satisfactory performance of the Hammerklavier. >.>

If your criterion is going to be adherence to Beethoven's almost insane outer-movement metronome markings, then you are unlikely to find a satisfactory Hammerklavier. Even the adagio is typically taken more slowly than B's 92 to the eighth, which would produce a more lilting, barcarolle-like movement than we customarily hear. But I don't know what performances you've heard, and I can think of several that seem to me illuminative even if they compromise the more extreme metronome points. Even so, hand crossings can be redistributed and some of the leaps are no worse than in other pieces I can think of. (The coda to the second movement from the Schumann Fantasy, the scherzo from the Webern variations come to mind.) As for the stretches in the first bar, most hands should be able to accommodate a minor ninth, I would think, or a major ninth in the bar shortly after. I would certainly agree that by this point in his life Beethoven, a renowned pianist in his youth, was writing more as a contrapuntist than a pianist in this and some of the other late piano works. Nonetheless, for every awkward passage you can mention, I can find passages that fit the hand well and don't require the kind of scampering all over the keyboard you find in the Rachmaninoff.

[jochanaan]

Is not Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto more 'popular with the non-piano-playing masses' than his 3rd?...

I think it was in the last century, and served as the perfect exemplar of the Romantic and romantic concerto. It figured in a half dozen films (most memorably to me is the part it plays in The Seven Yeawr Itch with Marilyn Monroe).

Rach 2 is popular as much for its story as for its musical value, which is obviously high.  Many of us here know that the Second is a direct result of Rachmaninoff's sessions with a hypnotist named Nikolay Dahl; Rach had written nothing for three years after the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony, and the hypnotist persuaded him that he would write a piano concerto and that it would be a masterpiece.  Which it is.

I can't speak to the relative pianistic difficulties of the Second and Third, since I've only glanced at the solo piano parts for each; however, one feature common to both concertos is that the orchestra is as vital a partner in the music as the piano.

And actually, as was stated above, I can see how the Bartok concertos are as difficult to master as any of the Rachmaninoff ones.

[deckard1]

Found this Youtube video of the maestro himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB6-gT-dt18

Please forgive me for asking the following question.   Was Rachmaninoff a child prodigy like so many of the other great piano players?

Thanks.

[Cato]

Found this Youtube video of the maestro himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB6-gT-dt18

Please forgive me for asking the following question.   Was Rachmaninoff a child prodigy like so many of the other great piano players?

Thanks.

The Rach started to learn the piano at age 4, instructed by his mother.  Later at age 12 he was sent for intense training to a man named Zverev, who undoubtedly deepened the natural talent and broadened the boy's horizons musically.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Please forgive me for asking the following question.   Was Rachmaninoff a child prodigy like so many of the other great piano players?

Thanks.

In a word, yes, he was extraordinarily gifted from the get-go, but was also a hard worker.

[amw]

Please forgive me for asking the following question.   Was Rachmaninoff a child prodigy like so many of the other great piano players?

I think the notion of a 'child prodigy' is itself flawed. Children are (as a rule) remarkably adept at learning and playing musical instruments—'child prodigies' are a dime a dozen. It's teaching those children the required level of discipline and hard work that is relatively uncommon. Otherwise they, y'know, spend more time doing normal things like playing with their friends and such, or never develop the attention span necessary to start practicing 4-5 hours a day.

In general I'd say if you don't have high quality fundamentals (and discipline) under your belt by the age of seven, you're never going to amount to anything as a musician; but there have probably been a few who were able to pick it up later in life (sometimes thanks to discipline from another field, e.g. neurosurgery etc—sometimes, apparently, by nothing more than natural talent and sheer bloody-mindedness). So 'adult prodigies' are the real exception.

This is also true for composers—you'll find that even those who didn't produce well-known works until much later in life often came from musical families and/or started composing and playing at a very early age. The extremely rare ones are figures like Matthijs Vermeulen who couldn't play an instrument and didn't write a note we're aware of (and only had two years of music lessons) before producing a full-fledged symphony in his mid 20s.

[Cato]

The Rach started to learn the piano at age 4, instructed by his mother.  Later at age 12 he was sent for intense training to a man named Zverev, who undoubtedly deepened the natural talent and broadened the boy's horizons musically.

Check out this book from 1934:

[asin]B012FWIJG2[/asin]

[deckard1]

Thanks for the book link! I thought I would try the following first. Just purchased the following book from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480112186?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

If anyone has any thoughts regarding this book, please feel free to share them.  Of course, how could the book be bad? 

My only concern is this particular book I purchased might be too advanced given my present skill level at playing the piano.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Thanks for the book link! I thought I would try the following first. Just purchased the following book from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480112186?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

If anyone has any thoughts regarding this book, please feel free to share them.  Of course, how could the book be bad? 

My only concern is this particular book I purchased might be too advanced given my present skill level at playing the piano.

I realize you're in awe of Rachmaninoff, but bear in mind that no book can substitute for a qualified live teacher, who understands your pianistic needs and can guide your personal progress.

[deckard1]

I realize you're in awe of Rachmaninoff, but bear in mind that no book can substitute for a qualified live teacher, who understands your pianistic needs and can guide your personal progress.

Believe it or not, I actually agree with you. 

Btw, what do you and others think of these 'master or play the piano in 6 weeks' books and online ads you see on the Internet? No different than the 'get rich, quick' schemes in my personal opinion.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Btw, what do you and others think of these 'master or play the piano in 6 weeks' books and online ads you see on the Internet? No different than the 'get rich, quick' schemes in my personal opinion.

A fool and his money . . . .

[deckard1]

A fool and his money . . . .

Agreed!