Rachmaninoff piano concerto no.1 - Leif Ove Andsnes

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1, in 1892, at age 19. He dedicated the work to Alexander Siloti. He revised the work thoroughly in 1917.

Revision and current structure

The public was already familiar with the Second and Third Concertos before Rachmaninoff revised the First in 1917. The First is very different work than those works. Rachmaninoff's melodies are still there, if less memorably than in the other two concertos, but combined here with a youthful vivacity and impetuosity. Also, the differences between the 1890-1891 original and the 1917 revision reveal a tremendous amount about the composer's development in the intervening years. There is a considerable thinning of texture in the orchestral and piano parts and much material that made the original version diffuse and episodic is removed.

The work is in three movements:

• Vivace (F-sharp minor)

  This contrast with the later works can be heard from the opening bars, where a brass fanfare precedes a flourish a double octaves and chords on the piano—a musical gesture similar to the Schumann and Grieg piano concertos. This flourish occurs later in the movement, as well, an important factor in the symmetry of the movement. The main theme (like the other themes in this work common to both versions) is short by Rachmaninoff's standards but already shows the sequential devices and arch-like design inherent in his later works.

• Andante cantabile (D major)

  This reflective nocturne is only 74 bars long. The texture is less cumbersome in the revised version; the harmonies remain the same but are enlivened by occasional chromatic notes.

• Allegro scherzando (F-sharp minor → F-sharp major) [1917 version: allegro vivace]

  Rachmaninoff replaced an initially drab opening with a fortissimo passage alternating between time signatures of 9/8 and 12/8. A maestoso reemergence of the concerto's main theme was eliminated. In the original version he had attempted to use this theme in an upward sequential treatment similar to what he would do later in the Second and Third Concertos. The problem here was that the theme did not lend itself so easily to this treatment, thus sounding contrived. It also came too late in the movement to have the right expansive effort prevalent in the other concertos.

Of all the revisions Rachmaninoff made to various works, this one was perhaps the most successful. Using an acquired knowledge of harmony, orchestration, piano technique and musical form, he transformed an early, immature composition into a concise, spirited work.Nevertheless, he was perturbed that the revised work did not become popular with the public. He said to Albert Swan, "I have rewritten my First Concerto; it is really good now. All the youthful freshness is there, and yet it plays itself so much more easily. And nobody pays any attention. When I tell them in America that I will play the First Concerto, they do not protest, but I can see by their faces that they would prefer the Second or Third."


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