Guest
Rachmaninoff prelude op. 23 No. 3 D minor Pierre Delignies, piano. Performed in Festivals Palace, Santander, Spain. Yamaha pianos. Most of the op. 23 preludes were completed after Rachmaninoff's marriage to his cousin Natalia Satina: Nos. 1, 4, and 10 premiered in Moscow on February 10, 1903, and the remaining seven were completed soon thereafter. 1900-1903 were difficult years for Rachmaninoff and his motivation for writing the Preludes was predominantly financial. Rachmaninoff composed the works in the Hotel America, financially dependent on his cousin Alexander Siloti, to whom the Preludes are dedicated. Rachmaninoff's Ten Preludes abandon the traditional short prelude form delineated by composers such as Bach, Scriabin, and Chopin. Unlike Chopin's small, half-page musical fragments, Rachmaninoff's Ten Preludes last for several minutes each, expanding into complex polyphonic forms with musically independent sections. The pieces perhaps represent a culmination of the Romantic idiom. The set reflects Rachmaninoff's experience as a virtuoso pianist and master composer, testing the “...technical, tonal, harmonic, rhythmic, lyrical, and percussive capabilities of the piano.“ As an anecdote, after a performance of the great Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin, i gave him the Rachmaninoff preludes’ sheet music asking for an autograph. He looked at me with sarcasm and he asked: “are you working on this?” I said yes; and then he said: “good luck my friend.” He was obviously trying to say how simple the preludes might seem, and how difficult, even for a great virtuoso as him, they are.
