Establishing "Home": Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2, Played by Moiseiwitsch

I mention this concerto, the Rachmaninoff Second, in class frequently. As a supplement and in lieu of having to take up class time with bringing a recording in and playing a CD to illustrate my point, I'm posting this here.

Please listen to the recording linked below. If you are familiar with this concerto, my point will be more easily understood. This concerto is--to me--one of the most beautiful and poignant pieces in all of music, but more relevantly to the class, this concerto is an exemplar of compositional technique. Note the use of the piano to establish the key, and the way the melody introduced thereon by the strings hovers at the tonic, teasing...leaving...returning...leaving...returning. It is almost coquettish in how it plays on the edge of withdrawal and return; it evokes a feeling of home, of loss and return (or loss and the longing to return), of nostalgia, of lost childhood or faded dreams.

Here is the first part of a recording of Benno Moiseiwitsch playing the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto on Youtube. This concerto is too long for the entirety to fit in one Youtube video, and so it is broken up into four parts. If you wish to listen to the whole thing, here are the remaining parts: part two (this is the second movement); part three (the beginning of the third movement); and the last part (the completion of the third movement).


CAVEAT: THIS IS NOT BACKGROUND MUSIC. Please give this particular attention and listen to it. Too many people confuse listening to music with being able to hear it; they are not the same thing. I am posting this for a reason, not for mild background amusement. There is incomparable genius to be found in this recording. This is one of the great achievements of our species. I present this as a key; through listening to this to find an insight into the poetry, literature, and ideas that we discuss in class...and much, much more.

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Benno Moiseiwitsch is my all-time favorite musician. I have loved him since I was 18. About 10 years ago, I saw this video on Channel 13; I had never seen Moiseiwitsch, and had not even known that there was video of him, I had not known that it were possible to see him with my own eyes in this flawed world of entropy, distance, and loss. I had so vividly seen in my mind's eye how he sat at the piano and how he touched the keys, and it was exactly as I had imagined. It was like seeing someone loved deeply, but who was long long gone forever, forever gone, long, long, alas; I wept.

If your ears wish your eyes to see what vision they hear, here is another video of Benno Moiseiwitsch, in which Moiseiwitsch plays the Wagner-Liszt transcription "Overture to Tannheuser".