COMING SOON: PART 2! Wait about 15 seconds for the music start. Please be patient :) piano: Sergei Rachmaninoff composer: Sergei Rachmaninoff orchestra: Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy (?) recorded: unknown, but we know after 1917 Program Notes: Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto no. 1 (dedicated to his cousin Alexander Siloti) is one of the many Rachamninoff pieces that are a steady part of the piano repretoire. Ironically, it's actually Rachmaninoff's SECOND attempt and writing a piano concerto. Composed in 1892 (when he was only 19!), the first version of the work is actually very different from the version we know today. In 1917, Rachmaninoff decide to revise it, and the revision shows how tremendously Rachamninoff matured and developed, and much of the texture and material in the first version was modified or removed. The piece is in 3 movements (the one you are hearing is the first), and it is in F sharp minor and the tempo Vivace. It has a large contrast with Rachmaninoff's later works, and starts with a fanfare following double octaves and chords on the piano, similar to the Grieg Piano Concerto, a concerto Rachamaninoff admired very much. It occurs later as well.
