Rachmaninoff PC2 vs Medtner PC2

[J Joe Townley]

Had a close listen w/ score of the Medtner Concerto No 2 and wondering why it cannot catch on. Several pianists have tried to make his concertos popular but he cannot escape the shadows of Rachmaninoff.

Will Rachmaninoff's Concerto No 2 dominate the piano concerto literature forever?

[Alan Howe]

Probably. The Medtner is a marvellous piece, but doesn't have Rachmaninov's obvious melodic profile. On the other hand, there are depths to Medtner that will fascinate the more patient listener. As to whether Rach PC2 will dominate forever - who knows? I suspect it will, but I've given up worrying about these things. I don't attend many concerts and hardly ever listen to music on the radio, so I'm content to plunder my own collection where Rach PC2 definitely doesn't dominate...

Nevertheless I dearly love the piece. I recently came across Zimerman's lovely performance with Ozawa on DG - and it was like listening to it for the first time.

[J Joe Townley]

I dearly love the Rach 2 as well, but now the 3rd has supplanted it, it seems and what's more astonishing people were so desperate for Rachmaninoff that someone arranged his Symphony No 2 as a piano concerto. Even more astonishing there are now about 5 videos of it on YouTube, four of them live performances.

People don't seem to be able to get enough of Rachmaninoff and YouTube has about 200 live performances of the Rach 2nd by orchestras/pianists of every stripe and level. Medtner, maybe about one, the Berezovsky. There are several recordings, however.

I think the Rachmaninoff concertos will stay on top because there's never been anybody who can best him since his Rhapsody and that's going on 80 years now. 

[jerfilm]

Yes and that "5th Concerto" in my humble opinion is a horrible bit of nonsense.   The arranger missed the entire thrust of what makes Rachmaninoff's piano music so wonderful - those lush climaxes in the strings with the piano pounding away unthinkably lovely chords.   That sort of thing.  The arrangement sounds like, well, the Second Symphony with some kind of piano obbligato accompaniment.    I listened to it more than once, hoping to hear something I had missed.......

Apparently some folks think it's great.

[J Joe Townley]

I frankly detest it and I think deep down any serious musician would agree with you that it is a failed attempt to get at anything by Rachmaninoff that can be passed off to the public as "a NEW piano concerto by Rachmaninoff". Such is the public's appetite for Romantic music and there we have this strange dichotomy of the industry "apparatchik" running classical music these days that absolutely will NOT allow a Romantic tonal composition to be premiered under its auspices but WILL allow and even encourage "noise" that is forgotten the day after its splashy London Phil premiere. I frankly don't get it. I mean I get the politics---"never look back; always advance forward" but we've advanced about as far as we can go and Mr. John Q Public has made it plain and clear that he does not like what gets cranked out by serious composers these days. I often use this lovely intelligent young lady as a perfect example. How many times would you want to hear any of this after the first go-round? Click link and then choose anything, but I recommend "Fissured Words". I don't criticize Ashley, I just use her music as a representation of what's being premiered today: a long pause after the last notes have died because the public doesn't know if the piece is over and  when the musicians have to make exaggerated gestures like smiles to one another and drop their instruments to let the audience know the piece is indeed over then comes the tepid applause

http://www.ashleywang.com/5.html 

My question is "Where will classical music be in 100 years?" The public at large will still be going to hear Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky in droves at the Berlin Phil while postmodern music will be relegated to tiny pockets of audiences of 50-75 people who maybe enjoy eclectic music in even tinier coffee houses or small college auditoriums if they're lucky. Orchestras will be replaced by tiny ensembles of 3-4 players, maybe friends of the composer. Does this look like the future of classical music or am I mistaken? Alan mentioned a few composers like John Williams but I have never seen anything serious by Williams performed after its premiere. Even Leonard Bernstein's larger works have been largely forgotten.

And I realize I got off topic. This subject should be a separate thread because I really despair for classical music's future.   

[MartinH]

I used to despair for classical music's future, but no more. First, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. My kids have zero interest in it - although irritatingly they both demanded classics at their weddings. When you think about it, classical music is the ONLY performing art that depends so heavily on the past. On Broadway they're not doing Shakespeare, Wilde, or even Rogers/Hammerstein. The local movie houses are showing Bride of Frankenstein, Gone with the Wind, Sunset Boulevard, or The Lady Killers. Only in music do we for some reason (and damned good ones at that) continue to play the cherished masterworks of the past. Many reasons for it, but for me, to put it simply and rudely: modern composers, by and large, aren't as good as composers of the past. Even the tonal ones just can't hold a candle to the geniuses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Rachmaninoff wrote music that you feel - the emotional connections he creates are substantial and undeniable.

So why not be concerned about the future? Yes, it will be different, but great art will always survive. It's a minimal blip on the screen in most the US right now, but it's soaring high in China and Japan. It's Asia where western classical music has it's future. I'm returning to China in May for a two week tour playing with a US orchestra. They have fabulous halls and the audiences are always large and enthusiastic. I just hope I can stomach playing Grand Canyon Suite 12 times in those 14 days!

[thalbergmad]

The Rachmaninoff PC's 2 and 3 are deservedly popular and unless there is some huge musical shift, it is difficult to imagine a time when they will not be.

Despite my interest in the unsungs, there is nothing else i have heard that comes close apart from perhaps Bortkiewicz 1 or Rozycki 1 and whilst there might be  a future release which will exceed thier power and beauty, i doubt it.

Saying that, i still need a damned good reason to listen to either of them again and it was only recently after considerable nagging, that i listened to the Bronfman performance of the 3rd, which only strengthened my belief that nothing greater has been written.

Thal

[eschiss1]

And in my opinion Bortkiewicz 1 comes nowhere close to Medtner 2. (I have nothing -new- to say about Medtner 2, unfortunately, probably...

though in the various comments, reviews, praises, critiques, criticisms, wossnames I've read about it, I've seen no mention of Medtner's continuing his habit of self-quotation (in the concerto, one of the themes comes from a Skazka (Ballade), Op.14/2, called "March of the Paladin". I say continues since his earlier Op.27 piano sonata (1912-4) quotes several of his songs (esp. his lovely set of Pushkin songs Op.29 (1913))- as does the piano quintet he was writing during his life.) Anycase, I find it very satisfying.  It's probably well-enough known that Medtner 2 (also the "Night Wind" Sonata Op.25/2, a terrific half-hour work which Hamelin has taken on tour, which one can hear a recording by Jonathan Powell on YouTube,...) are dedicated to Rachmaninoff, and that Rachmaninoff may have been returning the dedication when he dedicated his 4th concerto to Medtner  (iirc...)

[chill319]

I believe the fine Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky has inaugurated an annual Medtner festival.

http://www.medtner.org.uk/festival_0507.html