Sergey Rachmaninoff
Piano Concerto 3
in D Minor, Op. 30
The Third Concerto places huge technical demands on the soloist, but also features subtle lyricism, intricate musical conversation, and glimmering orchestration.
Year: 1909
Period: Late Romantic
Piano score: Scanned score 
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A special day in music history
Planning a tour of the United States, Rachmaninoff decided to write a third piano concerto, designed to showcase his talents as a pianist. Composed quickly, and rehearsed on a mute keyboard as Rachmaninoff crossed the United States, it requires great virtuosity and has the most complex structure of the concertos.
Imagine, if you will, being in a concert hall for a piano concerto performance, and then Rachmaninoff and Mahler come onto the stage. One takes his place at the piano, and the other steps onto the podium! Mahler had just a year and a little bit left to live in January 1910. The performance was a rousing success, as had been that of his second piano concerto a decade earlier. This wasn’t the third’s first performance, but it was a special day in the history of music during the first half of the 20th century. Rachmaninoff later described the rehearsal with Mahler:
"He devoted himself to the concerto until the accompaniment, which is rather complicated, had been practiced to perfection, although he had already gone through another long rehearsal. According to Mahler, every detail of the score was important – an attitude too rare amongst conductors. ... Though the rehearsal was scheduled to end at 12:30, we played and played, far beyond this hour, and when Mahler announced that the first movement would be rehearsed again, I expected some protest or scene from the musicians, but I did not notice a single sign of annoyance. The orchestra played the first movement with a keen or perhaps even closer appreciation than the previous time."
Unfortunately, after that special day, the concerto drifted into obscurity until resurrected by Vladimir Horowitz in whom Rachmaninoff had an ardent cheerleader. Rachmaninoff also made several cuts to the score in an attempt to make it more palatable to audiences. None of these cuts worked. Fortunately, Horowitz popularized the uncut version.
The piece ends with the four-note rhythm, sometimes interpreted as the composer's musical signature – "Rach-ma-ni-noff!" – because it is used in both the composer's Second Concerto and Second Symphony.
Forum posts about this piece:
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Piano Concerto 3 in D Minor - Op. 30 is a piano piece by the late romantic composer Sergey Rachmaninoff who lived between the years 1873 and 1943.
The composition was first published in 1909 and is included in Concertos by Rachmaninoff.