Riccardo Chailly leidt Rachmaninoff bij het Concertgebouworkest

Riccardo Chailly

Riccardo Chailly surprises again: this time, our former chief conductor sheds light on works by the young Serge Rachmaninoff. Here you hear not the mature Russian melancholic, but an energetic talent who still had to earn his stripes as a pianist and composer. He composed the Scherzo as a fourteen-year-old conservatory student. Four years later, the First Piano Concerto emerged, in which the typical Rachmaninoff style is already taking shape: the piano plays a heroic role, and in the orchestra, melodies glow like the Northern Lights in a polar night. In this work, the young Alexander Malofeev makes his debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Rachmaninoff

Shortly thereafter came The Rock , an atmospheric 'winter tale' with which Rachmaninoff made a great impression on his mentor Tchaikovsky. Indeed, one wishes he had written many more such colorful pieces. The music calls for a conductor who knows how to perfectly pace the drama. And leave that to Riccardo Chailly. Rachmaninoff wrote the concluding Etudes-tableaux for piano, but they were orchestrated so flamboyantly by his Italian admirer Ottorino Respighi that Rachmaninoff wrote to him in a telegram: 'I could never do that'.