Posted on 10/24/2006 6:13:19 AM PDT by sitetest
I must've missed that part. Not.
(LOL)
I have a history of walking out on bad flix... but this one may have garnered my quickest exit.
True. But, hey, at least he wasn't smoking. That would've really destroyed the movie's credibility.
;^)
I'll get flamed for saying this....I watch it for the women.
That reminded me once of a science fiction TV movie, MARTIAN CHRONICLES.
Later in the evening Johnny Carson got on his show and said, "I just saw MARTIAN CHRONICLES. Gee, I didn't know Martians had British accents!"
I don't know how 'seldom performed' they are. Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto is the most beloved of the 20th century. The 3rd is extremely well known as well. Spanning more then an octave or a little more isn't that much. Rachmaninov could span a 12th which is a lot indeed.
Ya know, I should have caught something wrong with that before I posted; I can almost cover an octave, and I have small hands. It's been too long since music theory. Wikipedia -- grain of salt assumed -- says he could span a 13th, which is more than an octave and a half.
The Rachmaninoff concerti are indeed well-beloved, and I have good recordings of them -- but I don't see them on live programs very often, because there's a shortage of pianists who can play them. The 2nd and 3rd are pretty well known, and the 1st is an underappreciated gem. My general impression, with not a lot to back it up, is that Rachmaninoff reached the peak of his powers just as recorded music became widely available, so he was in the perfect position to become, basically, a rock star.
As it turned out, Rachmaninoff was to become an excellent businessman -- which is why his escape from the future Soviet Union was a good idea. Living off the gold he had smuggled out of Mother Russian, Rachmaninoff took a year off to work on his piano technique. He did this for three reasons.
First, he knew that Russian opera did not travel well. His bread and butter would have to come from elsewhere. Second, he understood that the music world was not yet ready for the itinerant conductor. In those days, when you signed a contract with an orchestra, you were there for all but two weeks. But, third, he understood that it will still the era of the great flamboyant pianist. Paderewski, Careno, Hoffmann, Levhinne, Gabrilowicz and others still stalked the world's stages. There was room for another.
Upon launching a career as a piano soloist in 1919, Rachmaninoff signed up with Edison Records. While the money was good, Edison's producers were a musically illerate lot. But in 1927, the Radio Corporation of America merged with the Victor Talking Machine Company to create RCA Victor. Rachmaninoff and the producers at RCA Victor spent some time cultivating each other, and in late 1927, when his Edison contract ran out, Rachmaninoff signed with RCA Victor. While the money was the same, Rachmaninoff now had the one thing he had always wanted -- creative control.
Rachmaninoff now could determine what would be released and when. He had a blackout clause that would block radio broadcasts of his concerts, for Rachmaninoff was already thinking along the lines of bootleg recordings.
He became quite rich and had two homes. His winter home was in Beverly Hills, and his summer home in Locustwood, New Jersey.
Rachmaninoff took a fatherly interest in the progress of George Gershwin. Back in Mother Russia, the Rachmaninoffs, as a Russian and French speaking family of nobility, would have had nothing to do with the Yiddish speaking Gershwins of the shtetl. But in America, the only thing that mattered was how much money you made, and Rachmaninoff grew to like and respect this son of Russia's other side.
Rachmaninoff was present at the February 12, 1924 debut of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" at the Aeolian Hall, and his later American works show an occasional touch of jazz. The later variations in the "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganinni" have passages that feel like Gershwin on the fingers.
With Gershwin's death in 1937, Rachmaninoff became America's most beloved composer. When the theme from the finale of the Second Piano Concerto was turned into "Full Moon and Empty Arms" in 1941, there is no record of Rachmaninoff's reaction. (I have this vision of Rachmaninoff humming the tune as he deposited the checks at the bank.)
Despite marrying a first cousin, Rachmaninoff's daughters showed no sign of hereditary disorders, and the old man lived along enough to spoil his grandchildren mercilessly. His death of cancer in Beverly Hills in 1943 ended one of the great careers in music.
And he was a hell of a businessman.
A lot of composers have written variations on Paganinni's 24th Caprice. Among them are Brahms, Witold Lutoslawski and George Rochberg. The Lutoslawski variations for written for 2 pianos and are great, nasty fun.
In the first subject of the first movement of the First Piano Concerto, you can hear the wind whistling across the steppes.
41, I think, but the ones people remember are the later ones: say, 35-41. This suggests that he was getting better and could have contributed a lot more to music if he hadn't died. It would certainly have been interesting to see how Mozart would have adapted to the rise of Romanticism had he lived.
Of course, people may get too enthusiastic about Mozart today. That's to make up for having slighted him in the long heyday of Beethoven and romanticism. See Norman Lebrecht's outburst (the other side of the coin is here). But among any list of great Western composers, Mozart is going to be near the top.
I really can't say that for Amadeus among films. There was some -- well, nuance -- missing in the movie. Mozart may have been scatological or vulgar by the standards of his day, but by the standards of our own time, maybe not.
Thanks, I'll look into it. BraveMan, some more suggestions.
Me, too-Emily Procter makes me weak in the knees!
I agree - 100%
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