Nevertheless, Rachmaninoff's prophecy was ultimately proved false the work has been a staple in the repertory of several great pianists and was performed repeatedly by Rachmaninoff himself.Дespite the well-known technical difficulty of the piece, its three essential motives are deceptively, almost unreasonably simple: fifths, scales, and repeating notes. After examining the score, Russian critic Yuli Engel declared that вЂњunraveling this tangle of passages, rhythms, harmonies, polyphonic twistings, is no easy matter, even for an accomplished pianist.' Engel's assessment is spot on: the piece is akin to a freakish hybrid of the 2nd and 3rd piano concertos in which the pianist plays both the solo and orchestra parts simultaneously. The audience at the premiere was reportedly interested but confused. The pianist, Konstantin Igumnov, was informed only after he played the sonata two more times that it was inspired by the famed legend. Rachmaninoff remained hesitant to reveal the programmatic nature of the work, even after its Moscow premiere in October 1908. While the programmaticВ elements are more overt in Liszt's composition, the three movements in both works are musical portraits of prominent characters from Goethe's Faust: Faust himself, his lover Gretchen, and the devil Mephistopheles, respectively. Rachmaninoff's inspiration for the sonata was Liszt's Faust Symphony. The so-called 'nonsense' composed during this period includes his Second Symphony, The Isle of the Dead (a symphonic poem), and his Third Piano Concerto, all in addition to the First Piano Sonata. And I myself often wonder maybe it is all nonsense.' While his desolation may have colored his music (nearly everything he wrote during these years was in the minor mode), we, the listeners, are the beneficiaries. I've begun to notice no matter what I write lately-nobody likes it. In a letter to a friend, Rachmaninoff elaborated, вЂњTwo days ago I played the sonata for Riesemann, and he doesn't seem to like it. Such are the words of a deeply sensitive, depressed, and self-critical composer in 1906. Buy ' Bach and Rachmaninoff,' Greg's solo CD featuring this work.

No one piano notes