Nowhere is the pianist so often an ensemble partner and so rarely a soloist aggressively in the foreground as in this first movement of the Rachmaninov Second Concerto.
The initial impulse plays itself out in one grand, tightly organized paragraph, to which Rachmaninov adds two small afterthoughts, a bit of scurrying for the piano and a quite formal set of cadential chords. It is only then that the orchestra falls silent and the pianist steps forward as a vocal soloist in the grand Romantic manner.
Rachmaninov then constructs a bridge passage into the second movement. Again the pianist is at first the accompanist, briefly to the flute, at greater length to the clarinet. Throughout the movement the relationship between piano and orchestra is imagined and worked out with great delicacy.
Rachmaninov again makes a bridge into the finale, beginning with distant, rather conspiratorial march music, then working his way around to the piano’s assertive entrance. The march music is now determined and vigorous, and Rachmaninov finds for contrast the most famous of his big tunes. It all moves to a rattling bring-down-the-house conclusion.
Here is Yuja Wang to play all this for you:
