Last week Brooks Riley posted an article about, Yunchin Lim, who won the 2022 Van Cliburn competition with his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3. That, in turn, got me thinking about Rachmaninoff. The first thing I ever heard by Rachmaninoff was his Rhapsody on a Theme of Pagannini. I would have been in my teens at the time, but whether it was 13 or 17 or some other teen, I don’t remember. I believe the performance was by Artur Rubenstein, perhaps with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony.
So now I’ve got the Rhapsody running around in my brain, all the freakin’ time. In any effort to exorcise this glorious demon, I offer up a performance by Yuja Wang.
From the YouTube page:
Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg conducted by Gustavo Gimeno. Parc Kinnekswiss, July 1, 2023.
At least 12 cameras recorded this live concert, conducted by a video conductor behind the scenes. The original recording had a synchronization issue; I delayed the audio track by 0.1 sec in this remix.
Captions for the timings on the variations can be turned on by clicking the CC icon at the edge of the player.
00:22 Introduction: Allegro vivace
00:30 Variation 1: (Precedente)
00:49 Theme: L'istesso tempo
01:08 Variation 2: L'istesso tempo
01:27 Variation 3: L'istesso tempo
01:52 Variation 4: Più vivo
02:20 Variation 5: Tempo precedente
02:49 Variation 6: L'istesso tempo
03:53 Variation 7: Meno mosso, a tempo moderato
05:03 Variation 8: Tempo I
05:38 Variation 9: L'istesso tempo
06:11 Variation 10: L'istesso tempo
07:02 Variation 11: Moderato
08:23 Variation 12: Tempo di minuetto
09:45 Variation 13: Allegro
10:15 Variation 14: L'istesso tempo
10:58 Variation 15: Più vivo scherzando
12:07 Variation 16: Allegretto
13:46 Variation 17: (Allegretto)
15:31 Variation 18: Andante cantabile
18:13 Variation 19: A tempo vivace
18:45 Variation 20: Un poco più vivo
19:22 Variation 21: Un poco più vivo
19:49 Variation 22: Marziale. Un poco più vivo (Alla breve)
21:29 Variation 23: L'istesso tempo
22:21 Variation 24: A tempo un poco meno mosso
