Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor

Sergei Rachmaninoff

This work bears the designation Opus 18.

General Info

Year: 1901 / 2007
Duration: c. 35:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Piano and orchestra
Publisher: AdlerOaks Music Library
Cost: Score and Parts (print) - $200.00 | Score Only (print) - $80.00

Movements

1. Moderato - 10:15
2. Adagio Sostenuto
3. Allegro Scherando

Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo I-II
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
E-flat Alto Clarinet
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Contrabass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II-III
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Solo Piano
Timpani
Percussion, including:

Bass Drum
Suspended Cymbal

Errata

None discovered thus far.

Program Notes

The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The complete work was premiered, again with the composer as soloist, on 9 November 1901, with his cousin Alexander Siloti conducting.

At its 1897 premiere, Rachmaninoff's first symphony, though now considered a significant achievement, was derided by contemporary critics. Compounded by problems in his personal life, Rachmaninoff fell into a depression that lasted for several years. His second piano concerto confirmed his recovery from clinical depression and writer's block, cured only by a course of hypnotherapy. The concerto was dedicated to Nikolai Dahl, a physician who had done much to restore Rachmaninoff's self-confidence.

This piece is one of Rachmaninoff's most enduringly popular pieces, and established his fame as a concerto composer.

- Program Note from Wikipedia

A quality especially apparent in the Second Piano Concerto is a sense of effortlessness in its unfolding, and that is something new in Rachmaninoff’s music. He begins magnificently, and with something so familiar that we come perilously close to taking it for granted -- a series of piano chords in crescendo, all based on F, each reinforced by the tolling of the lowest F on the keyboard, and, through the gathering harmonic tension and dynamic force, constituting a powerful springboard for the move into the home chord of C minor. Once there, the strings with clarinet initiate a plain but intensely expressive melody, which the piano accompanies with sonorous broken chords.

The piano’s role as accompanist is also worth noting. Nowhere is the pianist so often an ensemble partner and so rarely a soloist aggressively in the foreground as in this first movement of the Second Concerto. The initial impulse plays itself out in one grand, tightly organized paragraph, to which Rachmaninoff appends two small afterthoughts, a bit of scurrying for the piano and a quite formal set of cadential chords. It is only then that the orchestra falls silent and the pianist steps forward as a vocal soloist in the grand Romantic manner. This version was transcribed for wind band by Scott Oaks in 2007,

- Program Note by Michael Steinberg

Media

(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)

State Ratings

None discovered thus far.

Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

Indiana Wind Symphony (Carmel) (Charles Conrad, conductor; Kelleen Strutz, piano) - 10 April 2022
Aragon High School (San Mateo, Calif.) Wind Ensemble (Troy Davis, conductor; Kevin Yang, composer) – 21 April 2018
West Geauga High School (Chesterland, Ohio) Wind Ensemble (Jason Branch, conductor; Arianna Körting, piano) – 2 March 2017

Works for Winds by This Composer

Adaptable Music

Morceaux de fantaisie (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Deterling) (1892/2020)

All Wind Works

Andante Cantabile (arr. Custer) (1934/1995)
Bogoroditse Devo (arr. Genervo) (1915/2009)
Bogoroditse Devo (arr. Salzman). See: Three Vespers from "All-Night Vigil"
Morceaux de fantaisie (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Deterling) (1892/2020)
Chimes of Moscow
Concerto for Piano No. 2, Theme 3rd Mvt. (arr. Lang)
Evocation of the Spirit (tr. Singleton) (2017)
Glory and Honor (arr. Houseknecht)
Hymn (arr. Grauer) (1915/2005)
Italian Polka (arr. Leidzen) (1941)
Italian Polka (arr. Lucas) (1938/2006)
Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor (tr. Oaks) (1901/2007)
Piano Concerto No. 2, Themes from (arr. Williams)
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (tr. Patterson)
Prelude in C minor
Prelude in G minor (arr. Lake) (1901/1922)
Prelude, Opus 3, No. 2 (arr. Longfield)
Rachmaninoff Prelude (arr. Cichy)
Rachmaninoff Prelude (arr. McGinty)
Russian Liturgy (arr. Singleton) (1910/1999)
Russian Polka
Suite from “All-Night Vigil” (Vespers) (arr. Juchniewicz) (1915)
Symphonic Dance Op 45 No 3 (arr. Satoh) (1940/1984)
Symphonic Dances, Op 45, No. 3 (arr. Lavender) (1940/2015)
Symphony No. 1 - Finale (arr. Hanna)
Symphony No. 2: Adagio (arr. Hanna) (1907/2013)
Theme from "Piano Concerto No 2" (arr. Bennett) (1901/1947)
Three Vespers from "All-Night Vigil" (arr. Salzman) (1915/2008)
- Bogoroditse Devo (arr. Salzman) (1915/2005)
Vespers, Opus 37, for Symphonic Winds (arr. Johnson) (1915/2011)
- Svete Tokhyi (arr. Johnson)
- Blazhen Muzh (arr. Johnson)
- Blagoslovi, Dushe Moya (arr. Johnson)
Vocalise (arr. Wheeler) (1909/2019)
Vocalise, Opus 34, No. 14 (arr. Hunsberger) (1909/2004)
Vocalise, Opus 34, No. 14 (arr. Roszell) (1909/)

Resources

Perusal score
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff), Wikipedia Accessed 3 March 2017
Rachmaninoff, S.; Oaks, S. (2007). Piano concerto no. 2 in C minor, op. 18 [score]. AdlerOaks Music Library: [New York?]