The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between June 1900 and April 1901. The piece established his fame as a concerto composer and is one of his most enduringly popular pieces.
After the failure of the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Op. 13) in March 1897, Rachmaninoff continued to compose some short pieces for piano, song and choral work while appearing in a number of concerts as an opera conductor. Just as he was finally beginning to recover from his ordeal, in January 1900, he had the opportunity to meet with the great Leo Tolstoy. However, he once again lost confidence after receiving harsh criticism for his original song "Fate" (Op. 21-1). After an unsuccessful meeting with Tolstoy meant to revoke his writer's block, relatives decided to introduce Rachmaninoff to the neurologist Nikolai Dahl. Between January and April 1900, Rachmaninoff underwent hypnotherapy and supportive therapy sessions with Dahl on a daily basis for over 3 months, specifically structured to improve his sleep patterns, mood, and appetite and reignite his desire to compose. That summer, Rachmaninoff felt that "new musical ideas began to stir" and successfully resumed composition.
In July 1900, Rachmaninoff finally composed the "Love Duet," a key scene in the opera Francesca da Rimini, which was to be completed in 1906. This song was written earlier than his Piano Concerto No. 2, which he began composing in the autumn of 1900, and the "Love Duet" became an important work that marked Rachmaninoff's rebirth as a composer.
He first worked on the second and third movements of the concerto, with the first movement causing him difficulties. Both movements of the unfinished concerto were first performed with him as soloist and his cousin Alexander Siloti conducting on . The first movement was finished in 1901, and the complete work had an astoundingly successful premiere on , again with the same duo. Gutheil published the concerto the same year.
Rachmaninoff dedicated the concerto to Dahl for successfully treating him by restoring his health and confidence in composition.
History Background Sergei Rachmaninoff had been working on his First Symphony from January to September 1895. In 1896, after a long hiatus, the music publisher and philanthropist Mitrofan Belyayev agreed to include it at one of his Saint Petersburg Russian Symphony Concerts. However, there were setbacks: complaints were raised about the symphony by his teacher Sergei Taneyev upon receiving its score, which elicited revisions by Rachmaninoff, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov expressed dissatisfaction during rehearsal. Eventually, the symphony was scheduled to be premiered in March 1897. Before the due date, he was nervous but optimistic due to his prior successes, which included winning the Moscow Conservatory Great Gold Medal and earning the praise of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The premiere, however, was a disaster; Rachmaninoff listened to the cacophonous performance backstage to avoid getting humiliated by the audience and eventually left the hall when the piece finished. The symphony was brutally panned by critics, and apart from issues with the piece, the poor performance of the possibly drunk conductor, Alexander Glazunov, was also to blame. César Cui wrote:
If there were a conservatoire in Hell, if one of its talented students were instructed to write a programme symphony on "The Seven Plagues of Egypt", and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and delighted the inmates of Hell.
Rachmaninoff initially remained aloof to the failure of his symphony, but upon reflection, suffered a psychological breakdown that stopped his compositional output for three years. He adopted a lifestyle of heavy drinking to forget about his problems. Depression consumed him, and although he rarely composed, he still engaged in performance, accepting a conducting position by the Russian entrepreneur Savva Mamontov at the Moscow Private Russian Opera from 1897 to 1898. It provided income for the cash-strapped Rachmaninoff; he eventually left as it didn't allow time for other activities and due to the incompetence of the theater, which turned piano lessons into his main source of income.
At the end of 1898, Rachmaninoff was invited to perform in London in April 1899, where he was expected to play his Second Piano Concerto. However, he wrote to the London Philharmonic Society that he couldn't finish a second concerto due to illness. The society requested he play his First Piano Concerto, but he declined, dismissing it as a student piece. Instead, he offered to conduct one of his orchestral pieces, to which the society agreed, provided he also performed at the piano. He made a successful conducting debut, performing The Rock and playing piano pieces such as his popular Prelude in C-sharp minor. The society secretary, Francesco Berger invited him to return next year with a performance of the First Concerto. However, he promised to return with a newer and better one, although he did not perform it there until 1908. Aleksandr Goldenweiser, a peer from the same conservatory, wanted to play his new concerto at a Belyayev concert in Saint Petersburg, thinking its consummation was inevitable. Rachmaninoff, who had thoughts of composing it three years earlier, sent a letter to him stating that nothing had been penned so far.
For the rest of the summer and autumn of 1899, Rachmaninoff's unproductiveness worsened his depression. A friend of the Satins (relatives of Rachmaninoff), in an attempt to revoke the depressed composer's writer's block, suggested he visit Leo Tolstoy. However, his visit to the querulous author only increased his despondency, and he became so self-critical that he was rendered unable to compose. The Satins, anxious about his well-being, persuaded him to visit Nikolai Dahl, a neurologist who specialized in hypnosis, with whom they had a good experience. Desperate, he agreed without hesitation. From January to April 1900, he treated him daily free of charge using hypnotherapy. Dahl restored Rachmaninoff's health and his confidence to compose. Himself a musician, Dahl engaged in lengthy conversations surrounding music with Rachmaninoff, and would repeat a triptych formula while the composer was half-asleep: "You will begin to write your concerto ... You will work with great facility ... The concerto will be of an excellent quality". Even though the results were not readily evident, they were still successful.
Composition and premiere
In June 1900, after receiving an invitation to perform Mefistofele in La Scala, Feodor Chaliapin invited Rachmaninoff to live with him in Italy, where he sought his advice while studying the opera. During his stay, Rachmaninoff composed the love duet of his opera Francesca da Rimini and also began working on the second and third movements of his Second Piano Concerto. With newfound enthusiasm for composition, he resumed working on them after returning to Russia, which for the rest of the summer and the autumn were being finished "quickly and easily", although the first movement caused him difficulties. He told his biographer Oskar von Riesemann that "the material grew in bulk, and new musical ideas began to stir within me—far more than I needed for my concerto".
The two finished movements were to be performed in the Moscow Nobility Hall on at a concert arranged for the benefit of the Ladies' Charity Prison Committee. On the eve of the concert, Rachmaninoff caught a cold, prompting his friends and relatives to stuff him with remedies, filling him with an excess of mulled wine; he didn't want to admit his desire to cancel the performance. With him as soloist with an orchestra after an eight-year hiatus and his cousin Alexander Siloti making his conducting debut, it was an anxious event, but the concert was a great success, easing the worries of his close ones. Ivan Lipaev wrote: "it's been long since the walls of the Nobility Hall reverberated with such enthusiastic, storming applause as on that evening ... This work contains much poetry, beauty, warmth, rich orchestration, healthy and buoyant creative power. Rachmaninoff's talent is evident throughout." The German company Gutheil published the concerto as opus number 18 the following year.
Before continuing composition, Rachmaninoff received financial aid from Siloti to tide him over for the next three years, securing his ability to compose without worrying about rent. By April 1901, while staying with Goldenweiser, he finished the first movement of the concerto and subsequently premiered the full work at a Moscow Philharmonic Society concert on , again with him at the piano and Siloti conducting. Five days before the premiere, however, Rachmaninoff received a letter from Nikita Morozov (his Conservatory colleague) pestering him regarding the structure of the concerto after receiving its score, commenting that the first subject seemed like an introduction to the second one. Frantic, he replied, writing that he concurred with his opinion and was pondering over the first movement. Regardless, it was an astounding success, and Rachmaninoff enjoyed wild acclaim. Even Cui, who previously scolded his First Symphony, displayed exuberance over the work in a letter from 1903. The piece established Rachmaninoff's fame as a concerto composer and is one of his most enduringly popular pieces. He dedicated it to Dahl for his treatment.
Subsequent performances The popularity of the Second Piano Concerto grew rapidly, developing global fame after its subsequent performances. Its international progress started with a performance in Germany, where Siloti played it with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Arthur Nikisch's baton in January 1902. In March, the same duo had a tremendously successful performance in Saint Petersburg; two days preceding this, the Rachmaninoff-Siloti duo performed back in Moscow, with the former conducting and the latter as soloist. May of the same year saw a performance at the Queen's Hall in London, the soloist being Wassily Sapellnikoff with the Philharmonic Society and Frederic Cowen conducting; London would wait until 1908 for Rachmaninoff to perform it there. "One was quickly persuaded of its genuine excellence and originality", The Guardian wrote of the concerto following the performance. England, however, had already heard the work twice prior to the London premiere, with performances by Siloti in Birmingham and Manchester. Rachmaninoff—enhanced by success from repossessing the ability to compose again, coupled with no more financial worries—repaid the loan from Siloti within one year of receiving the last installment.
After marrying his first cousin Natalia Satina, the newly-wed Rachmaninoff received an invitation to play his concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Vasily Safonov in December. Although the engagement guaranteed him a hefty fee, he was anxious that accepting it would show ingratitude towards Siloti. However, after seeking his help, Taneyev reassured Rachmaninoff that this did not offend Siloti. That was followed by concerts in both Vienna and Prague the following spring in 1903 under the same engagement. In late 1904, Rachmaninoff won the Glinka Awards, cash prizes established in Belyayev's will, receiving 500 rubles for his concerto. Throughout his life, Rachmaninoff soloed the concerto a total of 143 times.
Early reception After he fulfilled his 1908 London concert engagement at the Queen's Hall under Serge Koussevitzky, a flattering review by The Times emerged: "The direct expression of the work, the extraordinary precision and exactitude of Rachmaninoff's playing, and even the strict economy of movement of arms and hands which he exercises, all contributed to the impression of completeness of performance."