Maybe it was a coincidence, because I don't listen much to the radio, but two or three days after I published my posting about Rachmaninoff I had some internet-radio on at some golden-oldies station. A few minutes after I turned on this station there was this song "All by myself" by Eric Carmen. Not completely my cup of tea musically speaking, but not as bad as that horrible version by over the top power balladeer Celine Dion.
While the Eric Carmen-version was playing in the background it reminded me about the fact that the song contains almost a literal copy of the theme from the second movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. It's not my own discovery because I never paid that much attention to the Eric Carmen-song. I heard about the copying of the Rachmaninoff-theme some time ago from a Dutch radio-DJ who had an item about classical music themes in pop-music on a music programme on TV.
You can check it for yourself. I've added both the Eric Carmen-song "All by myself" and the second movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Listen to the few bars before the chorus starts. It's a literal copy, but also the melody of the stanza leans heavily on Rachmaninoff's original.
Funny fact: In a 2006 poll for the Channel 5 program Britain's Favourite Break-up Songs, Eric Carmen's "All by myself" was voted seventeenth.
If you ask people with a little to an average interest in classical music about their favorite composer(s) most of the time they come up with people like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and some might mention Chopin, Schubert or Brahms. Of course there is nothing wrong with these composers. I consider Bach myself as one of the greatest composers of all times and there are also compositions from the composers I just mentioned that certainly would be in my personal top 100 of favorite classical compositions. But it's a pity if you only would stick to this list of composers. There are so much more good, interesting composers who wrote beautiful, gorgeous, touching music.
I have a few favorite composers. One of them is Gustav Mahler, but in this post I want to write a little bit about one of my other favorite composers, Sergei Rachmaninoff. For more information about his life you can check the wikipedia-URL. Although his name is often spelled as Rachmaninov I use the spelling that he used himself living in the West after leaving Russia short after the 1917 Russian Revolution.
The first time I got in touch with Rachmaninoff's music was around the age of 11 or 12 when I heard a recording of his second Piano Concerto. This recording was part of a box from my parents with 15 records with all kinds of classical music, mainly concertos for piano, violin, cello and some windinstruments. I can't remember which orchestra it was, but I remember the name of the pianoplayer, Werner Haas. I'm not sure but it could be that this was the same recording as the one I listened to on the original record. I was impressed very much by this music. It was powerful but also very melodic at the same time. I've listened to this record many, many times. Because I couldn't afford to buy records too often I joined the recordlibrary and borrowed records every month and when I liked them I taped them on an audiocassette. This way I got in touch with lots of different music (not only classical music). Through the library I also got in touch with other music from Rachmaninoff.
The first version you hear of a classical musicpiece you often find the best, but when it comes to classical music you should keep an open mind to other versions and different interpretations of the same musicpiece. About 7 or 8 years later when I bought my first CD-player one of my first classical music-CD's I bought was a double-CD with the four piano concertos from Rachmaninoff played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink and Vlademir Ashkenazy on the piano. Although there are a few more outstanding recordings this recording is my personal favorite. As far as I know there are no other performing artists that have recorded all four piano concertos of Rachmaninoff. And Ashkenazy did an excellent job, proving that he is a great interpreter, and in my humble opinion one of the greatest, of the complex and demanding piano concertos of Rachmaninoff. The first and fourth piano concerto are good, but of course the second and third are the most famous piano concertos. The third piano concerto plays an important role in the movie Shine about the life of the Australian pianoplayer David Helfgott. The second and third concerto are considered as the top in the romantic piano repertoire and the third is also considered as one of the most difficult pianoconcertos ever.
Well enough writing about Rachmaninoff. Let's go to some of his music. I have embedded some material that I found on YouTube. First it starts with the prelude in C-sharp minor played by Rachmaninoff himself. It has everything that a good piano piece in my opinion requires: strong melody, drama, technical demanding for the pianoplayer.
The second, third and fourth videos are the first, second and third movement from the third Piano Concerto played by Vladimir Horowitz. I looked if I could find one played by Vladimir Ashkenazy, but unfortunately I couldn't find. Although considered as one of the greatest piano players this is not one of Horowitz' best performances at older age, but still more than worthwhile listening and looking to. I wish I had just 1% of the man's pianoskills.
The fifth video is "Daisies, Opus 38, No. 3", originally written for piano and voice, but here played by the great violin player Jascha Heifetz.
And finally "Vocalise" a gorgeously beautiful melody sung by Renee Fleming, but there are also other transcriptions of this piece played by different kinds of instruments. I also know a beautiful version on violin played by Itzhak Perlman.
There is much more beautiful music to be found on YouTube and elsewhere. Start some search yourself and allow yourself to be surprised during these musical wanderings on the internet. These unplanned searches might lead you to some new musical discoveries.
This time a video from Pat Metheny where he plays an unusual and original instrument, the Pikasso harp guitar, a 42-string guitar.
I got in touch with Pat Metheny for the first time about 24 years ago when I was about 17 years old. I got interested through a review in a musiciansmagazine from his live album Travels. I saw the record (for the younger people among us, the gramophone record was the analogue sound recording medium before the compact disc) in the music store, listened a few songs, bought it and got hooked. I saw him live once in the late 80's or early 90's and that concert is still in my top-10 all time favorite liveconcerts. A few years ago I've replaced my vinyl version of Travels by a CD-version.
I've always liked and still like Pat Metheny for his lyrical and melodic style of guitarplaying. Although considered as a jazz guitarist, he also uses elements from folk-, pop- and rockmusic. He collaborated with many great musicians from both the jazz- as the pop world, like bass player Jaco Pastorius, David Bowie, the late saxophoneplayer Michael Brecker, Joni Mitchell, Gary Burton, piano player Chick Corea, drummer Jack Dejohnette and many, many more.
I especially want to mention the Pat-Metheny album Bright Size Life on which he plays with Jaco Pastorius. The album was released in 1976 and was made in a trio-setting of guitar, bass and drums. Metheny's guitarplaying matches perfectly with Pastorius' virtuoso bass playing. I like this album a lot and still play it every now and then.
Here is the URL to Pat Metheny's official website.
There is a lot of nice and interesting material you can find on YouTube.
Anyway, enjoy this video!
Rachmaninov
Eric Carmen
