Word: rachmaninoff
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...Moscow psychiatrist leaned forward intently. "You will write your concerto," he intoned. "You will work with great facility ... The concerto will be of excellent quality." On the couch lay Sergei Rachmaninoff, 27, in a hypnotic trance. At the time (1900) Rachmaninoff was noted as a pianist and conductor. But as a composer he was notorious. His First Symphony had been premiered three years earlier to unanimous disapproval, so shattering his confidence that in the time since he had been unable to compose at all. Of his monumental block, Rachmaninoff recalled years later: "I felt like a man who had suffered...
Soirée Idol. The psychiatrist's patience and persuasion worked. A year later Rachmaninoff finished his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. It became his most popular work and, after the Tchaikovsky First Concerto, the most popular piano concerto in the repertory. As for Rachmaninoff, he went on to lead one of the few 20th century musical careers that can accurately be called spectacular. Only the Pole Josef Hofmann could be compared with him as a virtuoso pianist, and even Hofmann behaved deferentially around Rachmaninoff. No other concert pianist, except Prokofiev, had Rachmaninoff's stature...
...surprisingly, Jerusalem showed few signs that Israel had won at least a military victory. Night life remained subdued, and cinema attendance was down by 80%. When Jerusalem's citizens did venture out, as some did to hear Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky played by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, they took along blankets and coats; to conserve oil, the concert hall was unheated...
...describe [Sept. 3], with poor concert grands in many musical centers of the Western world, including Paris, London, Brussels and Zurich, I would like to find out when Steinway & Sons (by and large the best pianomakers in the world) will stop making concert grands geared exclusively for the Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Prokofiev type of works and start making again lovely, mellow-sounding instruments suited to playing Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann...
...captious critics, eccentric plane schedules, hotel-room mix-ups - pianists have lately been coping with a rash of recalcitrant and faulty instruments. "Twice in two weeks I've had the keys come right off the piano," says Byron Janis. "In Flagstaff, Arizona, I was in the middle of Rachmaninoff's G-Minor Piano Concerto when all of a sudden a tiny jagged piece of wood jabbed my finger where the B-flat had been a second before. A week later at the University of Maryland, a bass A-flat flew off as I was finishing a Chopin sonata...