Bob Draper:

>I am steadily downgrading my opinion of Rachmaninov.  His symphonies
>aren't up to much and others on this list have said that the piano
>concertos are poorly structured. ...
>
>We have talked a lot here about what makes a composer great.  I think that
>he/she has to have at least one seminal work under their belt. ...
>
>I wonder if he would be as popular today if it weren't for the Paganini
>variations.

I won't argue with your opinions, although I completely disagree with
you...but precisely what would you want a symphony to "be up to"?

Each of the three is up to something very different in every way, and his
other two major orchestral cycles, "The Bells" and the "Symphonic Dances"
are up to something else, as well...

I doubt if Rachmaninoff's popularity rests on the Paganini Rhapsody--I
should think that for the average listener to concert music it rests on the
Second Piano Concerto or Second Symphony while more experienced listeners
might favor the Paganini Rhapsody or the Symphonic Dances.  I can't factor
in the Helfgott effect in any meaningful way.

If you just don't like the music, fine, but there's a great deal there to
which even the most jaded professionals respond.

Alleged structural defects in the concerti can't really be substantiated;
this is a transparent attempt to reinforce personal taste by appealing to
"higher" esthetic issues.  The validity of musical architecture is not a
simple question of absolute numerical or other proportions; it requires
a congrence of many stylistic factors at all structural levels, hence
the frequent crippling effect of cuts, whether in Bruckner, Mahler or
Rachmaninoff, which can only unbalance and disturb the interaction of
various levels of articulation.

Regardless of the degree to which language constitutes content, the
issues of originality versus eclecticism are to my mind spurious artifacts
of the great style debates of the past century-- I find his to be a very
personal synthesis of turn-of-the century common practices, blended quite
differently from the same ingredients used by Medtner, Szymanowski and
Scriabin, to name a few.

If you call for a seminal work, I'd nominate the Second Piano Concerto,
both for its historical position in his oeuvre and for its breadth of
appeal.

Joel Lazar
Conductor, Bethesda MD
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