Posted on 12/16/2015 11:05:12 PM PST by WhiskeyX
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances op.45 - Live concert HD
Radio Filharmonisch Orkest o.l.v. Edward Gardner
18 december 2011, 11:00 uur, Grote Zaal van het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.
Rachmaninov: Symfonische Dansen
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: СергеÌй ВаÑиÌльевич РахмаÌнинов;[1] Russian pronunciation: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej rÉxˈmanʲɪnÉ™f]; 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943),[2] was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor.[3] Rachmaninoff is widely considered as one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.[4]
Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a personal style notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors.[5] The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument.
[....]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff
Symphonic Dances (Rachmaninoff)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, is an orchestral suite in three movements. Completed in 1940, it is Sergei Rachmaninoff's last composition. The work summarizes Rachmaninoff's compositional output.
The work is fully representative of the composer's later style with its curious, shifting harmonies, the almost Prokofiev-like grotesquerie of the outer movements and the focus on individual instrumental tone colors throughout (highlighted by his use of an alto saxophone in the opening dance).[1] The opening three-note motif, introduced quietly but soon reinforced by heavily staccato chords and responsible for much of the movement's rhythmic vitality, is reminiscent of the Queen of Shemakha's theme in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel,[2] the only music by another composer that he had taken out of Russia with him in 1917.
The Dances allowed him to indulge in a nostalgia for the Russia he had known, much as he had done in the Third Symphony,[3] as well as to effectively sum up his lifelong fascination with ecclesiastical chants. In the first dance, he quotes the opening theme of his First Symphony, itself derived from motifs characteristic of Russian church music. In the finale he quotes both the Dies Irae and the chant "Blessed be the Lord" (Blagosloven yesi, Gospodi) from his All-Night Vigil.[1]
[....]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonic_Dances_(Rachmaninoff)
Ping
Amazing saxophone solo in the middle of movement 1. Orthodox Christianity conducts Saturday School for kids. My wife is Russian, and the Church where my son went to his Saturday school was where Rachmaninov went to services when he was in exile from the mid 1930s till his death from melanoma, Age 69 in 1943. Some elderly people remember seeing him when they were kids. He had a memorial service there. Church on Micheltorena St, Los Angeles.
Btw. Rachmaninov wrrote Symphonic Dances in 1940 while he lived here in Los Angeles
An absolute masterpiece.
bfl
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