: Rachmaninov fast or furious Why is the very start of Rachmaninov piano concerto #3 so fast? If I explain this any more I risk being as misunderstood as I understand 10 seconds of Rachmaninov.

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

It's actually not! The beginning of the first movement is actually labeled Allegro ma non tanto, meaning "fast but not too fast." You may be thinking of the beginning of the third movement of the concerto, which is fast.

Either way, concertos typically follow a particular brand of sonata form developed over decades and decades, and the opening and final movements of concertos are typically fast; Rachmaninoff was simply working within these normative conventions. (If you want to be fancy, you can call this "dialogic form," where the form is "in dialogue" with prior practice by acknowledging/challenging/responding to it.)

Furthermore, in 1967 Edward T. Cone, an absolutely brilliant musical thinker (and one of my favorites), published an article called "Beyond Analysis." In it, he basically claimed that some musical questions can't be answered by analysis; they just are because at some point the composer has to make decisions that seem arbitrary. Although in Rachmaninoff's case there were stylistic conventions within the sonata/concerto form that likely compelled him to use a fast tempo, anything more specific than that, without concrete biographical information from Rachmaninoff himself, is likely "beyond analysis."