Skip to main content

Rach 3

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3 hasn't failed to impress me. I had heard a lot about it being considered the most difficult concerto of all...and now that I've heard it, I can see why even the greatest piano veterans revere and fear it.

My list of the Top 4 Piano Concertos of all time are:
  1. Beethoven's Emperor Concerto
  2. Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor
  3. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1
  4. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3
The common trait among them all is that they are exceptionally flamboyant, something that Mozart's compositions never tried to attain.

BTW, the photo shows the legendary Van Cliburn playing Rach 3 in the final round of the First International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition. Cliburn went on to become the legend that he is today. Coincidentally, I remember reading an article (in the Reader's Digest) about a certain Japanese guy (Jon Nakamatsu) who had won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997 playing ...guess what, Rach 3!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is what Bertrand Russell said about religion...

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. ... A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
6 comments
Read more

The year that was

I'm wearing a rather striking shirt, one that makes me feel like a clown fooling around in a graveyard. Roving eyes latch on to me and make me too conscious of myself. Checkered in red, grey, black and maroon, I've excused myself into donning it and looking silly for two reasons. It's Friday and…more importantly, the last working day of the year. Tailored half-a-year back, I never had the courage to wear it, not until today. It's that time of the year when it's time to reflect on the events that transpired. Last year ended on the worst possible note. Dad had expired and I was numb with shock. The repercussions rippled halfway thought this year. Things were so abysmal initially that I had lost the will to live. Acrid in everything I did, I was immensely angered by time phlegmatically flowing through its cadence. It was as if Dad meant nothing to anybody. What right did people have to live the way they always had when Dad was no more? Why was much of the world still
61 comments
Read more