Stunning piano concerto openings

[JimL]

Did anybody mention the Rufinatscha concerto?

[eschiss1]

... I think I remember the concerto whose opening was running through my head- not unsung at all, but the opening of Mendelssohn's G minor.
Maybe already listed, maybe not (well, not everything that -is- listed on page 1 is unsung either...), but that brief rushing-tremolo crescendo preceding the piano entrance - etc. - yes, I can see why when I was thinking about ear-catching openings, that leapt to my - inner ear - even if I managed typically for me, to forget for a few days, who wrote it.

[ewk]

I do absolutely Agree with the beauty of the lyapunov Rhapsody – do you agree that the beginning is exactly the same as a melody in some Rachmaninov Concerto (i think second concerto)? I think that even the orchestration is very similar – it's only a few bars, but that's the stunning thing about this piece: the beautiful Rachmaninow melody that everyone knows, but composed quite some years earlier as far as I know.

ewk

[JimL]

No.  There is nothing in the Rach 2 that was lifted from the Lyapunov Rhapsody.  Remember that Lyapunov used 3 Ukrainian folk songs as the basis for his work.

[ewk]

I'm sorry,  I was writing the previous post without research, only from memory – and you're right, there is no Rach 2 in Lyapunov's Rhapsody or vice vers.

But however, there is a little bit of Rach 3 in it! It is only one melody and the end is different, and the orchestration is not at all similar, that was just wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzR-c4ELTOs#t=0m40 (lyapunov)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lusMu2LGIUM&feature=related#t=12m40 (rachmaninov)

So it's not the big parallel as i promised in my last post but still, when first listening to the Rhapsody (I bougth the reprint of the vox box with michael ponti some months ago), the first thing to cross my mind was "wow, that's like rachmaninov!
But this is not the only reason to love this piece!

ewk

[JimL]

Well, it's really easy to take a snippet here and a snippet there and find a resemblance.  Maybe especially with Russian music.  Has anybody pointed out to you the parallels to be found between the middle section of the slow movement of Henselt's Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2?

[eschiss1]

Well, if you want a resemblance, try the opening of the slow movement of Medtner's Sonata-skazka (1910?) and that of the "big tune" of the E-flat major variation of Rachmaninoff's Paganini Rhapsody (1934). Same key, same notes, different rhythm (only for 5 notes, admittedly.) (Ok, I repeat myself there...)

[JimL]

Are you talking about the 18th Variation?  The one in D-flat, where the theme is in augmented inversion?

[eschiss1]

I expect you're right. Sorry, I need to look at scores of these things. In the Medtner, Bfl G Afl Bfl Efl  (though the continuation is different.) (In German, B G As B Es)