How radical was Rachmaninoff? | Hacker News Reader

How radical was Rachmaninoff?

newyorker.com

90 pointsmiobrien39 comments

The article nominally is titled "How Radical was Rachmaninoff?", but my read sounds a lot more like the author is overly obsessed with questions of being up-to-date and fashionable and is struggling with the idea of liking something that isn't (or wasn't) following the latest fashions and is having some cognitive dissonance as a result. As a bonus some fashionable cognitive dissonance is signaled at the end about whether it's OK to enjoy the work of someone who dies long before their nominal country of origin does something the author doesn't like. (I say "nominal" because Rachmaninoff died two "countries" ago.)

To which my reply would be in essence, stop worrying about "fashionability". Here in 2022, you can have any number of community's fashions, and any amount of work being done in any number of older styles. Don't look to some particular community to tell you whether it's OK to like something. (And I really wouldn't recommend looking only to what currently passes for academic "high" music.)

And as for the latter, give up liking anything if that's going to be your standard. Wait long enough and the descendants of every culture currently existing is going to do something you don't like. Might as well get ahead of the curve and just reject everything now because someday someone somewhere is going to do a bad thing.

Reject your inner high school. Like what you like. Dislike what you dislike. Stop waiting for other people to give you an approved list of what it's OK for you to like.

“Rejecting your inner high school” used to simply be called “growing up”. Extended neoteny seems to be the fashion of the day.

I was inclined to agree with you, but then I read the article and saw it was by Alex Ross. So I think the headline was mostly clickbait: he's a guy who's expected to despise "old" music like Rachmaninoff, and he's reporting on other people at the Festival who sorta do. But he's being fairly objective about it.

Well put. He's my 2nd favourite composer, behind Dvorak. Also this excerpt from the article made me smile - "which makes one regret that Rachmaninoff neglected chamber music in his maturity."

Bet if he hadn't everyone'd howl about how he should've left chamber music alone...

'Reject your inner high school' is hilarious

I don't think the article even attempts to answer the question. To my ears, Rachmaninov is not radical, rather someone who created his own branch, veering slightly away from late Romanticism. His harmonies and passing notes almost defy the idea of "extended chords" but remain tonal; there's even not much of the chromaticism often found in the works of composers less radical than the Second Viennese School. Nobody followed in his style, AFAIK, not unlike Bruckner's case. Rachmaninov is more of a lone star than a radical.

This comment seems to imply that radicalism can be measured by use of atonality and chromaticism. Which makes sense in some ways, but I can't help but observe that these forms of "radicalism" have dominated highbrow "classical" music for the last century, and have come to feel conventional and often boring.

I think atonality (via serialism) fell out of fashion in the 80s or 90s. For the last few decades the most-played living composers seem to be writing neoromantic and minimalist music. This makes sense, since those are much more listenable than serialism. That doesn't mean there are no atonal bits in the music, but you also hear a lot of actual melodies and strong rhythmic bits.

This reminds me of Joe Hisaishi and his soundtracks for Studio Ghibli movies. He's the big guy right now as far as I'm concerned.

Hisaishi is one of my all-time favorite film composers. I think his style mixes neoromantic with a lot of early modern French influence like Debussy and Ravel. He also has some strong jazz influences and I think there are aspects of his music that reflect Japanese folk music too.

Atonality was a radical departure. Impressionism was quite radical, too. And minimalism. But although Rachmaninov was "up to date", he almost didn't leave the established path. He wrote great melodies and the harmony, orchestration and runs are wonderful, but it's not radical. That's not bad, IMO. Radicalism as such is overrated. It's throws out the baby with the bathwater. It may come with great ideas, but it often also is a power grab, an attempt to overthrow the elite and establish a new one, which may have a different "language" or style, but still has an old-fashioned power structure. There will be a top, there will be some good works, but the lesser artists don't magically improve: they were there before the new movement, and they will there there after. And (all this IMO, of course) they were what made chromaticism and atonality so boring.

The other day, I listened to Christian Sinding's 3rd symphony. I thought it was a bit bland but ok for 1870, but it turned out to have been written 50 years later. Still, since it's tonal, it's accessible, and there will be people who enjoy it. But a composer of similar caliber in a later age, forcing him/herself to write in some serial technique, will sadly produce something we'd rather forget.

TLDR: I like Rach, and I'm not fond of radicalism for its own sake.

Oh, how the times they are a-changin'.

If anything he was heavily influenced by Medtner, afaik.

I am not sure the /intent/ of the article is to answer the question.

Rachmaninoff speaks:

"I have no sympathy with the composer who produces works according to pre-conceived formulas or theories. Or with the composer who writes in a certain style because it is the fashion to do so. Great music has never been produced in that way – and I dare say it never will.

...I say again and again that music must first and foremost be loved; it must come from the heart and must be directed to the heart. Otherwise, it cannot hope to be lasting, indestructible art.

...it is my own pet belief that, if you have something important to say, you don’t need a new language in which to say it. The old language is sufficiently rich and resourceful. The young composers make the mistake of believing that you achieve originality through technique. Actually, the only originality worth achieving is that which comes from substance. A composer can use all the accepted tools of composition and produce a work far different in style and subject matter from any ever produced, because he has put into music his own personality and experiences."

p.s. The article doesn't mention what Rachmaninoff thought his greatest work, the choral symphony The Bells. My favourite version, conducted by Kiril Kondrashin, Moscow 1963, video with full score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4b08aVZn0w

So radical that playing alexis weissenberg's rendition of Morceaux de fantaisie, Op. 3: No. 2, Prélude in C-Sharp Minor leaves chills down my spine to this day.

Not to be deliberately difficult but surely "I like Rachmaninoff very much" is a different statement than "Rachmaninoff is a radical"? There's surely plenty of pieces where nobody would even begin to argue that they were radical (even in their time) that can send chills down one's spine.

(The counter-argument might easily descend into "all great art is radical" I suppose the article itself touches on this: "At these colloquies, someone inevitably proposes that Composer X is more of a modernist than had hitherto been suspected." As a huge fan of the Vaughan Williams symphonies, I'm rather familiar with this trope)

"Rad".

A common story about the piece is that Rachmaninoff took inspiration from a dream he had. The dream was set in a funeral (hence the bell-like tolling at the beginning of the piece). As the dream progresses, Rachmaninoff walks toward the central coffin, and the piece builds suspense as Rachmaninoff continues to get closer. When he finally gets there, he opens the coffin only to find himself inside, coinciding with the beginning of the climax of the piece (marked "agitato" on the score). Whether or not this story is true, or painted on to the piece at a later date, the story seems to match the progression of the piece.

(copy pasted from Wikipedia but very interesting nonetheless)

Interesting, there's a very similar dream in Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957)

Other great tracks:

Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5.

Piano Concerto 2. It's long but at least listen to the first 30 seconds, up until the point when the orchestra comes in. This is (in my opinion) one of the greatest moments in all of Western art music.

Agreed, concerto 2 is (in my opinion) of the most beautiful and epic music pieces ever.

Interesting fact: Carmen's (C. Dion's) All By Myself is largely based on this concerto's 2nd movement. IIRC Rachmaninov is even listed as a coauthor because of a copyright lawsuit.

I already linked a different Igudesman&Joo video in another thread, but this video beautifully shows that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9akzcgzRaw

I would also recommend Khatia Buniatishvili's.

Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKKlhYF53w

This is delightful.

His version of the B Minor prelude gives me that chill every time. Glad to see another fan.

Wonderful piece.

> Can such a figure really be deemed an anachronism?

Obvious answer is the correct answer: yes!

Hell, there are moments in Brahms' Paganini Variations that are more experimental than Rach's Paganini Rhapsody. I'm thinking in particular of that wonderful little canon where the right hand follows the left hand in a slightly-altered triplet pattern.

Alternatively, listen to Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations for two pianos written only seven years after Rach's Paganini Rhapsody. And realize that is about as conservative as Lutoslawski gets!

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Rach's compositions, and turning the theme upside down in the Rhapsody was a stroke of brilliance. But the question is elementary to answer and not at all elucidating. He wasn't a radical composer in any reasonable sense of the word.

You're saying "anachronism" as if that's a bad thing.

Even in his day, Rachmaninoff was derided as being behind the times, stuck in the 19th century. I can't help thinking the hatred is similar to the singing purists exalting Domingo and trashing Pavarotti.

In fact, Domingo IS a "better" singer and does sing to your heart and not just your head, but Pavarotti is the one who communicates with ordinary people. There is nothing wrong with that.

Alex Ross (The Rest is Noise) is a champion of modern, dissonant-sounding music, and he knows his music theory backwards and forwards. So he's someone people would expect to despise the Rach-man. Knowing that, I don't see this article as condescending.

Wow. Nothing in the article reflected the man whom for Rach#3 I had read the liner notes: It was so difficult that he had to have a piano on the ship to practice. Before 'Shine' there were only a handful of players who would attempt it, after 'Shine' and its gain in popularity, there are now room fulls of 16 year olds who can play it note for note, and a few that can riff off of it.

He was very progressive.

https://archive.ph/MMR4P

An opportunity for my favorite "Russian composer" joke!

Did you know that Tchaikovsky struggled with depression? He once tried to commit suicide by walking into a frozen river. Do you know what happened?

He got cold feet.

It's funny 'cause it's true!

The first composer fully preserved as a recorded artist... sounds radical

But we do have a voice recording of Brahms.

No musical performances, AFAIK.

That sounds like "accidental radicalness."

"I`d`ve been Rachmaninoff but Mother Nature ripped me off"

Austere musical scholar

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