Unsung Rachmaninoffian Piano Concertos

[Lionel Harrsion]

I don't know about other members, but I instinctively feel extremely uncomfortable with such cut-and-shut jobs.  If I went into the National Gallery and painted my own boat on a Turner, I'd be arrested.  If Rachmaninov had wanted to write it as a concerto he would have done so. I haven't listened to this and as a matter of principle, I wouldn't.

[X. Trapnel]

I agree and can only see this as an unneccesary stunt that adds nothing to our experience of Rachmaninoff. On this whole subject of the Rachmaninovian we musn't lose sight of the fact that however an imitator may drape himself in SVR's harmony, orchestration, rhythmic sense, melody (ha!), they cannot produce his vision or convincingly inhabit it however briefly. One of the distinctions between the classicist and the romantic is that the where the former strives to do what everyone else is doing but to do it better, the latter strives to do what only he can do and make it good.

[febnyc]

I don't know about other members, but I instinctively feel extremely uncomfortable with such cut-and-shut jobs.  If I went into the National Gallery and painted my own boat on a Turner, I'd be arrested.  If Rachmaninov had wanted to write it as a concerto he would have done so. I haven't listened to this and as a matter of principle, I wouldn't.

You're entitled to your opinion, with which, obviously, I disagree.  I have enjoyed many such "cut-and-shut jobs," as you label them, without any discomfort whatsoever.  Try the Sitkovetsky (I think it was his) transcriptions for string orchestra of the Bach Goldberg Variations - a different and enlightening view of these works. 

At any rate, it seems to me that your Turner analogy is a bit hysterical (in two senses of that word.)  After all, Warenberg was neither defacing the original nor was he committing a crime.  Perhaps your queasiness has blurred your reasoning?

[X. Trapnel]

Re Sitkovetsky's Goldberg, this is transcription, not recomposition/rearrangement of parts. Likewise the piano and orchestra arrangements of the Rachmaninoff piano suites by Rebekah Harkness and Lee Hoiby seem reasonable.

Now, perhaps if an expert forger put the "Fighting Temeraire" into "Peace: Funeral at Sea" we'd have TWO superbly painted ships in one picture; surely an improvement... And I've always longed to see the "Rain, Steam, and Speed" locomotive roar right through the "Interior at Petworth."

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'm rather tickled at the analogy between this Warenberg character transcribing / arranging / plagiarising (I'm not sure of the correct word) Rachmaninov's Second Symphony and transforming it into a piano concerto and your painting your own boat on top of a Turner.

It clearly would be outrageous to call the result 'Piano Concerto No. 5'. Whatever it is, it isn't Rach's Pf Concerto 5. As you say, Rachmaninov never wrote such a work.

However I don't think the analogy quite works. If you daub paint on top of the Turner then you're destroying the Turner painting forever - many people would be rather miffed, and little wonder you're arrested for you would be committing a criminal act of vandalisation.

Mr Warenberg might have done something pretty unseemly - like you I really wouldn't want to listen to this thing - but he is not a vandal for the simple reason that he hasn't destroyed the Rachmaninov work. In my view he's merely done something rather naff. So maybe you're on slightly shakey ground in having what would seem to be an objection a priori to the idea of the work?

Just by coincidence, earlier this evening I listened to - and thoroughly enjoyed - an arrangement of Beethoven's E flat major Septet Op. 20 by one Friedrich Hermann for Viola and Piano. Hermann's work, under the title of 'Grand Duo' was published by Peters in Leipzig in 1853, and is found on a wonderful Toccata disc, 'Beethoven by Arrangement', played by Paul Silverthorne and David Owen Norris.

Now I rather sense you might not "instinctively feel extremely uncomfortable" with Hermann's Grand Duo, and maybe like me would enjoy the work and not be suspicious of its legitimacy.

Of course, it would be as silly to call it Beethoven's Grand Duo as to call the former work Rachmaninov's Fifth Piano Concerto. I happily welcome the Hermann work. I consider it more than a worthwhile work in its own right: it is great fun to listen to, it taught me a few things about the Beethoven Septet which I hadn't noticed before, and there was no sense at all in which listening to it caused the hackles to rise given that Hermann is 're-arranging' the Beethoven work.

Hence a problem arises: if it is acceptable, and doesn't violate good taste, for Hermann to arrange the Beethoven work and thus to bring into existence another work (although being an arrangement one dependent on its original), then (at least in principle) what's wrong with this Warenberg fellow arranging Rachmaninov's symphony? Maybe I've missed something, or the brain has just gone into plod mode.

And of course there are many many other examples - e.g. the Liszt transcriptions. Surely you wouldn't, "as a matter of principle", refuse to listen to such things, or even acknowledge that some 'arrangements' might be meritorious?

[X. Trapnel]

How about eliminating/orchestrating the piano part in, say, the Third Concerto to make a Rachmaninoff Fourth Symphony. Pointless? Well...

[TerraEpon]

Well there's Tchaikovsky's Symphony in Eb....


Honestly I think more people are more bothered with the names "Rachmaninoff PC #5" and "Brahms PC  #3" than the actual pieces. But I don't see them as any different than any other arrangement. They may be successesful or not, but there's nothing inherently /wrong/ with them any more than the version for winds of Beethoven's Septet I've been listening to, or Golliwog's Cakewalk for string quartet....or whatever else.

Going back to "Brhams Piano Concerto #3", is that much different than "Beethoven Piano Concerto #6" outside the fact that Beethoven himself did the later? How about Stravinsky turning Pulcinella and The Fairy's Kiss ballets into pieces for violin and piano? Is Leonard's orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition less worthy than Ravel/Ashkenazy/Wood/Funtek/etc/etc's because it's for piano and orchestra instead of orchestra alone?

One could go on....

[Alan Howe]

But I'd rather you didn't. Back to the topic, please...

[Christopher]

...and then there's the "Concerto Elegiaque", which is a version of Rachmaninov's Elegiac Trio arranged for piano and orchestra by Alan Kogosowski.  Personally I enjoy it, it added to my perception of the original version for Trio.

[semloh]

Well, many post-Rach. concertos show his influence, of course, or at least seem to. My first vote goes to Golubev's 1st (1944), with its emotional, driving style, the piano and orchestra in constant dialogue, and forever teetering on the edge of a big powerful melody, which finds fulfilment in the final movement. It's structured in the same way as a Rach. PC, with a wistful central slow movement mostly played by piano alone, followed by a rousing 'no holds barred' finale. Sorry, I don't know the technical arguments, but all one needs to do is listen to that last movement -  one big intense Rachmaninovian crescendo. I really expected to find that he had been taught at some stage by Rachmaninov, but he was actually a pupil of Myaskovsky! 

[Ilja]

...and then there's the "Concerto Elegiaque", which is a version of Rachmaninov's Elegiac Trio arranged for piano and orchestra by Alan Kogosowski.  Personally I enjoy it, it added to my perception of the original version for Trio.

This implies an interesting point. Arrangements can actually enhance your understanding of the original. Getting to know Liszt's piano arrangements of the Beethoven symphonies certainly opened my eyes to aspects that had eluded me before, because lots of what I might disrespectfully call the 'chaff' of orchestration has to be cut away on the piano. The change of scenery can really give you a new view on what is essential.

[Lionel Harrsion]

At any rate, it seems to me that your Turner analogy is a bit hysterical (in two senses of that word.)  After all, Warenberg was neither defacing the original nor was he committing a crime.  Perhaps your queasiness has blurred your reasoning?

While sensitive to Alan's request that we revert to the topic, I feel I have to defend myself against the charge of hysteria!  To me the analogy works from the point of view of the fact that once I have listened to one of these hack arrangements I can never again hear the original without the damn re-working impinging on my conscious -- it taints the original for all time.  As a silly but powerful example, since having heard the recording of Reizenstein's 'Concerto Popolare' from one of the Hoffnung concerts, I have never been able to listen the Grieg piano concerto without imagining the interpolations from Tchaikovsky's 1st concerto which Reizenstein shoe-horned into his musical joke.  So that that extent, the 'Turner' that is the Grieg piano concerto has  been ruined for all time for me by Reizenstein.

[Alan Howe]

OK, defence accomplished! Moving on...

[JeremyMHolmes]

In reply to kyjo's posting on August 13th, readers might like to know that Hannikainen's lovely (and very romantic before anyone asks) Piano Concerto Op 7 was broadcast this morning on R3 as part of their "Through the Night" (around 5:30-6 am). This means it should be on iplayer for another 6 days or so - well worth a listen! I reckon it should be added to the long list of future RPCs for Hyperion.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Just listened to the Hannikainen PC (thanks for the post, Jeremy) and it's a winner IMHO - written in St Petersburg just before the Russian revolution. Certainly a candidate for the RPC series, I'd say. I wonder what other Finnish PCs of a Romantic nature were written at about the same time.