Born on April 1, 1873, on the estate of Oneg, near Novgorod in Russia; Died on March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California
Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44
Lento - Piu vivo
Adagio ma non troppo - Allegro vivace
Allegro
Composed: 1935-36
Estimated length: 40 minutes
Sergei Rachmaninoff took a long break from writing symphonies after completing The Bells in 1913. He regarded this choral symphony inspired by the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe as his “Third” symphony and did not return to the genre until 1935, when he began the work we know as Symphony No. 3, completed the following year.
By then, Rachmaninoff had already been living in exile for years. The Revolution of 1917 had forced him to leave his Russian homeland for good, and he came to depend on his international career as a concert pianist to support his family. The demands of performing and conducting left far less time for composition, and his output dwindled dramatically.
During the 1930s, Rachmaninoff found a setting that rekindled his desire to write. He had a villa built near Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland, which he dubbed SENAR, combining the first two letters of his and his wife Natalia's first names and concluding with the initial of their last name.
There he sought to recreate something of the atmosphere he had known at his former Russian estate at Ivanovka. It was in this idyllic getaway—a retreat even as fascism spread ominously across Europe—that he completed the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934 and composed the Third Symphony during the summers of 1935 and 1936.
While Rhapsody had been an instant success, the Third Symphony received a discouraging response at its 1936 premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, one of the era’s celebrity conductors. Some critics heard too much of the old Rachmaninoff and dismissed his late-romantic style as out of touch with the direction modern music was “supposed” to be taking. Other listeners had almost the opposite complaint: the Third’s sparer language seemed too modern and lacked the sweeping lyricism they loved in his earlier works.
However painful he found the critical reaction, Rachmaninoff nevertheless believed strongly in the Third. After revising the score, in 1939 he recorded it with the same orchestra. “Personally, I’m convinced that this is a good work,” he wrote in a letter to a friend. “But sometimes authors are wrong, too. In any case, I am sticking to my opinion.”
Rachmaninoff retained vivid memories of the Russian Orthodox worship he encountered as a child. He once remarked that a favorite recollection was when his grandmother took him to St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, where the sound of the great church bells made a lasting impression; bell sounds would recur throughout his music. The chant-like writing that opens the Third Symphony evokes that same Russian Orthodox sound world, now recalled by a composer living far from his homeland.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
The Third unfolds in only three movements. Rachmaninoff entrusts the opening to a delicate blend of clarinet, muted horn, and muted cello, creating one of the score’s most distinctive colors. They introduce a three-note idea, which returns throughout the score and helps hold the three movements together.
The first movement moves between meditative passages and more exuberant music. The second begins with a horn and harp recalling the opening chant theme before a solo violin introduces the first of several melodies that grace this movement. At the center of the second movement, a faster, scherzo-like section brings a sudden burst of speed and restless motion before the slower music returns.
The finale begins with bright, dance-like energy and later introduces another chant that appears repeatedly in Rachmaninoff’s music: the medieval Dies Irae, a chant about the Day of Judgment familiar from the traditional Requiem Mass. But any hints of gloom are dispelled in the joyous rush of the final minutes.
Scored for 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, contralto trumpet, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celesta, and strings.
− Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony's program annotator.
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Kevin John Edusei, conductor
Brad Mehldau, piano
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