Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.2 in c moll, op.18

Five years separate the Second Piano Concerto of Sergei Rachmaninoff from his preceding keyboard work – the Six Moments Musicaux opus 16. Following a period of harrowing self-doubt, frustrations and reflections concerning his life's journey (the failure of his First Symphony in 1897 affected very badly his mental state), in his new work the composer emerged as a mature, proficient artificer with pronounced individuality and established manner of writing. The work, created at the boundary of two epochs (the interval between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901 year) earned a well-deserved success to its author and became recognized for the best Russian piano concerto after Tchaikovsky's First Concerto. At the same time, retaining all signs of continuity with the legacy of Tchaikovsky and the rest of the Russian and foreign nineteenth century composers, Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto epitomizes a completely new imagery and new devices of musical expression. Here the composer is manifested as an original artist, free from any sophistication, and at the same time – in possession of all devices of a newest kind of technique. This work can rightly be called an "inspired lyrically-impassioned poem for piano and οrchestra". Poematic traits are discernible in the trend towards unity of the cycle and the continuity of development, achieved with the help of widely deployed intonational and thematic bridges and modulational links between different sections. One of the emblematic and defining features of the classic concerto - the opposition between the solo instrument and the orchestra - is absent from this work at the expense of closer interaction between the two parties. Some of the composer's contemporaries were rather confused by the almost complete absence of solo "concertante episodes", which would give the soloist an opportunity to freely demonstrate his virtuoso abilities. Critics have dwelled in bewilderment on the issue whether to accept this as a strength or flaw of the work. Today it can be positively ascertained that the concerto belongs to the masterpieces not only of Russian but also of the world musical literature. With its profound lyricism and amazing beauty and expressiveness of melodic line, it has earned to Rachmaninoff the glory of unsurpassed master, and the main theme from the concerto's first movement, one of the remarkable specimens of Rachmaninoff's gift for melody, was rightly styled by Nikolay Metdner "one of the most vivdly Russian themes". The concerto was first performed on 9 November 1901 in Moscow, with Rachmaninoff himself as soloist, and his cousin, Alexander Siloti, at the conductor's podium.