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Rachmaninoff: An Enigma

When one thinks of musical geniuses, one typically imagines them to be from the remotest antiquity. Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, and even Mozart, are all sufficiently removed from our time that we take their genius for granted. The air must have been so much thicker with music back then that it's impossible that such geniuses shouldn't have been produced. But when we come to Rachmaninoff, all our illusions about the past are shattered, because Rachmaninoff was from our own time. True, it's been nearly three quarters of a century since his death, but Rachmaninoff was, the fact remains, of our time in a way that Chopin, Beethoven, and he other greats weren't. We are fortunate to have recordings of Rachmaninoff's playing that bear testimony to his virtuosity. With Liszt, we must either believe or disbelieve the accounts of his virtuosity that have been handed down to us; but with Rachmaninoff, the evidence is here, and we can verify the accounts for ourselves. Rachmaninoff would be a legendary figure in the history of music even if he had never written a single composition in his life. But the fact that Rachmaninoff is an Olympian among composers makes him so much the more remarkable, and the fact that he was of our time makes him the more remarkable still. There may be people alive today who have known a world before some of Rachmaninoff's great masterpieces were written. There have been people alive until very recently who known a world before Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto was written. There may even have been people who witnessed the Master engaged in the creative process, weaving music out of thin air, and have left firsthand accounts of it. The fact that such magic occurred in this world so recently is too thrilling to contemplate.

Rachmaninoff was a poet in the highest sense. He was a master of human emotions, like Chopin before him; but whereas Chopin was introspective and subdued, Rachmaninoff was all about release. Perhaps that's why the older generations, like Arthur Rubinstein's, sometimes found his music overindulgent and vulgar - sappy and lacking subtlety. Even still, Rachmaninoff wrote some of the most powerful and moving climaxes and melodies in the repertoire. And the remarkable thing is that each climax is original, even as it produces the same feelings of awe and rapture in the listener every time. His capacity for writing original music is somehow more remarkable than that of any other composer. Rachmaninoff did not finish writing one piece of miraculous music and say, "This is the best I can do," and keep adapting that music in his future compositions: He wrote original music each time, and each time his music moved the listener as only Rachmaninoff could, and filled the listener with such feelings as he has come to learn can only be found in Rachmaninoff's music.

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