Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rachmaninoff was one of the outstanding pianists of his time and wrote for the instrument from inside it. His piano writing covers a wide span, uses the full keyboard, and often places the melody in the middle of the texture with accompaniment above and below it. Finding the tune inside a dense passage is part of listening to him.

His melodies are long. Where a Classical theme is four or eight bars, a Rachmaninoff theme can run twenty or more, rising by steps to a single high point and then falling. He builds whole movements as approaches to one climax.

The Second Piano Concerto (1901) came after a three-year silence following the failure of his First Symphony, and he dedicated it to Nikolai Dahl, the physician who treated him during that period. The concerto opens unusually: the piano alone, playing a series of chords that grow from quiet to loud before the orchestra enters with the main theme. The soloist accompanies that theme rather than announcing it.