Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 in c minor:
What is it about the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 (hereinafter referred to as the Rachmaninov Third) that causes most of the viewers of performances of this concerto to lose it and write such extreme, over-the-top, emotional (accompanied by tears), even cult-like comments about their god pianist in these performances? And of course they are always pianists in their 20s and 30s, also known as the “Circuit Pianists.” The “Circuit Pianists” — that’s what I call them — are the “pop stars” pianists of classical music today. Major symphony orchestras invite them (and usually only them) to perform with them. So, if the time-honoured and legendary pianists of past generations were alive today and performing (or even the present generation), they would not get an invite to perform with these orchestras most likely because it has to be the young “pop stars,” of today, some of whom look like they are barely out of the acne stage of development. It’s all a bit much frankly.
Every performance I watched online of the Rachmaninov Third was described in the comments as, “Best performance ever” and “Best pianist ever” and other extreme rubbish. None of these classical music armchair critics who commented cared to explain how they came to that conclusion from a piano pedagogy position. In fact, none of them seemed to know anything about piano pedagogy since none of them mentioned anything related to that, yet that’s one of the first things I look for in a performance. I assume other trained pianists do the same because it’s based on our training. Which makes me conclude that the classical music armchair critics have no training in piano or in music. They just like to pretend they do as self-appointed authorities.
And of course as is usually the case with the outdated classical music armchair critics, ugly nationalism was once again brought up. It always is by them. None of them seem to know that music is the international language, crossing all human-created borders. So why are certain countries brought up and the musicians from those countries? Music is not a national language, aside from national anthems. Humans are humans, regardless of where they’re from. I don’t know when these outdated nationalism-obsessed people will learn that. Probably not in my lifetime. Unfortunately, classical music stations are just as obsessed with nationalism and have been for decades. And that’s probably where these classical music armchair critics learned this nonsense. Some of them assume they are so-called experts in music simply because they listen to or rather have on (as background music) a classical music station. I had a relative years ago who would talk about, “I go to the Symphony” which seemed to imply that she knew something about music, perhaps? But her son told me that it wasn’t the way it sounded. He told me that she went to hear the San Francisco Symphony on occasion solely as a social outing with friends and not because she had any interest in the orchestra or in music. It was just something to do to get out of the house. He said, for example: the San Francisco Symphony could play the same piece over and over on the same programme and my mother couldn’t tell it was the same piece she was hearing over and over because she has no ear for music what-so-ever. Whenever I was invited to her place for dinner and I was asked to play her upright piano — which didn’t get played any other time — over time I learned to play the shortest piece in my repertoire because she and the guests had absolutely no interest in my playing and they would all very quickly lose interest and start talking over my playing. She only asked me to play out of politeness.
Yesterday I heard an announcer on the classical music station I had on say, “The Russian composer…..” I thought: Here we go again. He couldn’t just give the composer’s name and the name of the composition. No, it had to be “the Russian composer.” What does the composer being Russian have to do with anything? It is supposed to be a better piece than someone born in some other country? I give no thought to where an artist was born and I don’t think about those nationalistic things. In the comments I referenced earlier, with one performance of the Rachmaninov Third, people had to point out that it was a German orchestra and a Russian pianist and an Armenian conductor and a this and a that. Going through all the nationalities of that performance was a bit tiring, and it really had nothing to do with the performance. Yes, the orchestra is based in Deutschland but they are not all German musicians. What about the Asian, Belgium, Dutch, French, Canadian (and others) musicians in the orchestra? They’re not German. I guess the classical music armchair critics forgot about the individual orchestral members! Why didn’t they go through the entire roster of orchestral musicians and list their birth country? Isn’t that critically important to these nationalistic fools? Why didn’t they go through the 150-voice Symphony Chorus and list the birth place for each chorister? Isn’t that equally important to you nationalistic trash? This makes one want to scream! Because it’s so ludicrous. Does it matter what plot of land on the Earth these musicians were born on or came from — I think NOT! — when music is the international language?
Of course some composers were/have been greatly influenced by certain things in their country, such as Rachmaninov having been very influenced by Russian church bells. And one hears the sound of those bells in some of his compositions, and he also wrote a symphonic choral work about same titled Колокола, Kolokola, Op. 35, (The Bells). But other than that, why do people obsess over ultra-nationalism?
And even when a pianist was born in Russia, sometimes they train in another country such as in the US at The Juilliard School, for example. Or take Cristina Ortiz who trained in Brazil and also with Rudolph Serkin at The Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. So do you see how ludicrous this nationalistic rubbish is that classical music stations and the classical music armchair critics are obsessed with? The rank nationalism in the comments for the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 was eye-rolling and if I had to guess the age of the nationalists, they would be of an older generation. That’s usually the generation having been brainwashed with nationalism, and people who have been brainwashed that they are “old” regardless of their chronological age, even though age is just a state of mind.
I “learned” the Rachmaninov Third years ago. It is an aerobic workout to play it well. I hope I played it well. I put “learned” in quotes because some seasoned pianists who have played the piece in performance ask, “Does anyone ever really learn the Rachmaninov Third? Because it’s a lifetime endeavor.” And I know what they mean by that. It took me 9 months just to get very carefully through it. It’s an extremely intense piece to learn. All those notes! In some chords, every finger is playing a note with the thumb on two notes. I haven’t played it with an orchestra, in part, because concerto opportunities are rare, and unless one has an artist management or is of an age that fits the age requirements of a piano competition, one is out of luck frankly. After a regular diet of Rachmaninov, pretty much any other piece seems relatively easy I found.
So, having played the Rachmaninov Third, I look for certain things in each performance to see how they’re done from a piano pedagogy perspective. I also look at the pianist’s form and posture at the piano and how he or she has been trained. I can tell that from their playing, which seems to escape and not be at all the criteria for anyone in the video comments below these performances. No one wrote about the terrible posture of some of these pianists and their not supporting their back, all bent over with their nose practically on the keyboard. Where did they train and their professor didn’t correct their poor posture at the piano? No one in the comments seems to know anything about piano pedagogy and posture at the piano, but yet they like to come across as if they are absolute experts on this concerto. Instead, they are easily impressed by needless theatrics such as the pianist bouncing around on the piano bench during the cadenza and his bouncing hair, his sweat, his insane looking facial expressions whilst performing (such as the “Dracula Pianist,” as I call him; his first name is Daniil) and speed. I’ll take a beautifully shaped phrase any day over speed. And with Rachmaninov concerti, one loses a lot of the beautiful inner voices and textures — it becomes a blur — when speed is the goal rather than the detail.
I’m not featuring a video performance of the Rachmaninov Third because I’ve yet to find one that I’m completely satisfied with and that is as close to the Ortiz as I would like and also the pianist’s form at the piano. Is no one being taught to sit up tall and support their back these days in piano studios in Conservatories and University Schools of Music? One will likely have back problems later in life from being all bent over at the piano. And it just doesn’t look good to be all hunched over at the piano rather than sitting up tall and supporting his back like pianist Artur Rubinstein, immediately below.
Pianists like him (below) make my back hurt just watching him:
Bouncing Hair Antics:
I would be hammered severely if I were to write what I’ve written here in the comments on any of those videos. It’s the pianist’s cultists who get red hearts next to their comments from the channel owner. I’ve also learned over the years that the people in the comments who seem to know nothing about piano pedagogy seem to resent any one who does. They resent, have no respect for and can even troll a trained pianist when he or she comments. They seem to have no respect for Conservatory training as if said education is a bad thing in their mind. But this is nothing new. I received the same negative reaction a couple of years ago when I was politely critical of the soprano soloist in the performance of a symphonic choral work. The classical music armchair critics absolutely adored her. They resented/had no respect for my Orchestra Chorus experience based on what they wrote in their comment. I never list the specifics about my Orchestra Chorus experience in comments, but for anyone here interested here: Norman Scribner’s Choral Arts Society of Washington performances with the National Symphony Orchestra in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Dr Paul Traver’s University of Maryland Chorus performances with the NSO in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and at Wolf Trap, and Margaret Hillis’s/Vance George’s San Francisco Symphony Chorus in performances with the San Francisco Symphony in Davies Symphony Hall.
I exposed some of the classical music armchair critics as them knowing nothing about music; they just pretend they do, although I didn’t say that in those words. The classical music armchair critics ruin classical music for a lot of people. For them, it’s easier and cheaper to pretend to know something about music than to actually spend the decades studying music with the time, effort, talent, discipline and money that requires. So when someone exposes them to be the musical frauds that they are, they have no respect and even resentment for someone who is a trained musician, because they feel intimidated and feel like they have been exposed as musical frauds.
Also, regular readers might have noticed that I deliberately avoid featuring “Circuit Pianists” because they’re already getting enough exposure from classical music stations with their ugly nationalism, and from most major symphony orchestras around the world who engage them to play the same pieces in multiple cities. For example, when I was listening to Classical California, if a recording of a Rachmaninov piano concerto was going to be played, it had to be — and still is the case — the recording by a certain Asian female circuit pianist (who shows up half naked) and a certain celebrity conductor whom they have referred to on air as “the Dude.” Playing that performance has become predictable. One would not hear anybody else, especially a “legendary” pianist play the Rachmaninov. No, it has to be someone very young and who is touring the circuit and who is one of the “pop star” pianists of today. So, one is not likely to hear Cristina Ortiz play The Third on Classical California at any time of day or night.
As for the female musicians who use the half-naked gimmick for their performance (meaning they show up half-naked like that female down the page), to be clear, I have no problem with nudity at all, but I keep asking: What is with female artists who show up for performances with their chest mostly bare, such as her below. Is she going to play the Boob Concerto?:
Except for her breasts (barely) covered? Are females like her trying to use the cheap and tacky gimmick of “sexing up” the performance because she and others like her don’t think that their performance is that good and can stand on its own and speak for itself?
By contrast, if a guy showed up half naked and like most females do and if he were wearing a nice-looking tank top, he would be ordered to go home and “come back presentable.” It’s quite an hypocrisy; the double-standard over performance dress between females and male musicians. Instead, guys are expected to be all covered up like monks, where females are half naked. Why? Question: Does a female’s chest get overly heated when performing that she needs to play with a bare chest? (Of course not). I’ve not noticed any sweat on a female’s chest during a performance where that’s the case. I think this has become part of tradition: female artists are expected to show up like the females on this page.
My choral friend asked about the pianist immediately above: Is she supposed to be Tarzan’s wife? Does Tarzan have a “theme song” she could play on the piano? Imagine if a guy showed up like that! Who shows up to play the Tchaikovsky First looking like that? She does. Tacky. I wonder if Deutsche Grammophon is embarrassed by her dress attire?
Or like the female below. She looks like a “cocktail pianist” in some sleazy smokey bar, rather than an international concert artist. The woman doesn’t make the best judgments. One would get the impression she’s trying to show some labia, no? Or is her interests really in being a porn star? Or does she have a “trick” lined up after her performance? She has said in an interview, “I can wear long and black too. I like being versatile … I wanted to do the shock value.” Why? Do you really need “shock value” if you are a superb pianist? Can’t your performance stand on its own? Why do you need a cheap gimmick of “shock value” if you give a splendid performance? Gimmicks! That reminds me of the “memorised Chorus” gimmick that some choral ensembles use. They must not think they’re good enough so they perform from memory to “wow” shallow and superficial people in the audience who fall for gimmicks and stunts like that. Because one does not necessarily get a better performance by performing without their scores. As for this pianist below, I think the girl has issues. I’ve never seen her in “long and black” and I’m not hot on all-black either.
Let’s tell it like it is: The classical music field has many fucked up, silly traditions that make absolutely no sense to thinking people. Who dreamed up some of these ridiculous traditions? One of them is parking vocal soloists in chairs on the edge of the stage where they can’t even see the performance because their back is to all of the other musicians on stage — what nut came up with that tradition? — and they stare at the back wall of the Concert Hall for the entire length of the performance, trying to avoid eye contact with the people seated near the stage because you never know what nut is in the audience who might try to hop up on stage. Where should vocal soloists be seated? Back next to the Chorus, preferably on the left side of the Chorus as I’ve seen done in Amsterdam. Vocal soloists are not the “stars” of performances, although much of the public mistakenly think that, I think. The Symphony Chorus is the “star” when they perform the majority of the work along with the orchestra.
What insane person came up with that tradition? Insanity. Another silly tradition is that of their outdated performance attire. Some ensembles are slowly changing performance dress (it’s still mostly all-black), in the EU and UK. But there’s something in between conservative all-black and the extreme of looking like a porn star for a performance of a piano concerto. Clearly, the “cocktail pianist” below prefers the other extreme for “shock value” as she calls it. I don’t understand her thinking.
To be clear: I’m no prude. I really don’t care if she comes out completely naked to be honest, as long as a guy is allowed to do the same. Therein lies the double standard between the genders. I’m there for the music, not a fashion show. But again, if a guy could show up looking similarly half naked, I might support her “porn star” dress attire.
And the people writing those comments shouldn’t be saying “Best performance ever” and “Best pianist ever” since they’ve not heard all performances of the piece — especially those performances never recorded — to make that judgment, but granted that doesn’t stop the conservative classical music armchair critics from doing that.
My favourite pianist for the Rachmaninov Third is Cristina Ortiz with the Royal Philharmonia with conductor Ivan Fischer. Cristina’s interpretation is unique with very clean-sparkling playing, especially her merging of the two cadenzas (first movement: the standard and ossia cadenzas), which is how I played it. I also pay special attention to the pedaling used in the third movement to create a unique gallop feel for the two più mosso sections that I’m thinking of at the moment (Editions Boosey & Hawkes).
Notice I’ve not said that the Ortiz performance is “Best performance ever” or “Best pianist ever” or any of that nonsense. I wouldn’t say that, and I don’t understand why there has to be a “Best performance ever” or a “Best pianist ever.” That is such extreme, asinine, sheeple thinking? And how would one possibly make those determinations? Based on what criteria? It’s as ridiculous as the “Best Country” nonsense.
If one enjoys watching a pianist whose chest is almost on his knees and who likes to bounce around on the bench, then watch him. One would hope that The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition would be above that, but no, the sheeple audience at The Van Cliburn was just as “wowed” by a certain pianist bouncing around on the bench, his bouncing hair, his sweat and his speed. These shallow people in the audience jumped to their feet with a roaring standing ovation. It’s all a bit much to objective, thinking people and people not easily swayed by hype, cheap antics and marketing. The problem with that is that well-trained pianists are taught to “make it look easy” no matter how difficult the piece is. Well, the cheap antics of bouncing around on the piano bench and bouncing hair make the piece look as if it’s difficult to play, not easy. So those antics which are intended to sway an audience really cancel out that “make it look easy” training, assuming one has been taught to “make it look easy” to begin with. Unfortunately, Cristina’s performance was not video recorded, so this is the audio only:
Update: I’ve enjoyed the following performance from Nikolay Khozyainov. Here’s the performance information (video was uploaded in 2016):
Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow. The State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Mikhail Agrest, conductor. Nikolay Khozyainov, piano. NIkolay plays the Rachmaninov Third beautifully without needless theatrics, no flailing arms or hands, no bouncing around on the piano bench like many do today. He sits up tall and supports his back, he makes it look easy (relatively, considering the difficulty of this concerto) and at the end he’s not sweating profusely or bouncing off the piano bench to shake hands with the conductor. He plays like the well-trained, genuine artist he is: