Rach 2 - Mvt 1 Opening section help!

[Jaydee]

Hi guys,

I've just started to learn the Rach 2 concerto, mvt 1.  But I am a little bit confused with how the opening arppegiated notes should be divided to fit the 4 beats in a bar.  It seems to be very strange to practice it slow with a metronome, because I can't match it up properly!  Can someone please help me?

Thanks!

Jaydee

[pianiststrongbad]

I am currently learning this peice too.  Since the time signature is 2/2, i have simply been counting the half notes and letting those eighth notes just fall into place.  I think you should feel the half note as the pulse, because that is when there is a new arpeggio.  I don't know if this helps.

[krenske]

just play chords here. i think that's what Richter does.

[pianiststrongbad]

Krenske, I think Jaydee is refering to the a tempo at bar 9.  Unless if I am in the wrong place?

[richard w]

Basically, from bar 9 there is a mixture of regular and irregular time divisions, but Rakhmaninov hasn't taken the trouble to notate them exactly. I suspect he didn't want the performer to get too bogged down in the detail. And when you get it up to speed I suspect you will find it quite easy to fit the given notes into the two beats of each bar.

If you can, set your metronome to give you two beats per bar and fit the groups of 8 or 9 (or whatever) into the available space. But if you are having to take it very slow (and I did at first) it isn't so easy. I got the notes 'under hand' by thinking of it in four and subdividing each group into whatever regular or irregular time division fitted best. For instance:

bar 9: think of as 4 groups of 4 (ie semiquavers or sixteenth notes)
bar 10 & 11: 1 group of 4, one group of 5 and two groups of 4
etc...

I think you can get through most of it by thinking in terms of groups of three, four or five. If one beamed group contains 9 notes, think of it as one group of 4 and one group of 5 (or vice versa). If one beamed group contains 7 notes, think of it as one group of 3 and one group of 4 (or vice versa). Hopefully you get the idea.

Now strictly speaking, you should be playing each beamed group evenly across each minim beat, but the above method gives you a way of thinking about it while you use your metronome to learn the notes, and you can practice being more free when you get it up to speed. But in any case, you've still got more or less the effect even if you keep thinking about it as four groups per bar.

But, the real difficulty starts at bar 35 (I think) where you have 2 against 3. Or bar 55 where you get 2 against 7. Or at the Un poco più mosso, where it goes bloody fast in quaver triplets with two hands. Enjoy.

Hopefully that made sense.


Richard.

[piano88]

Play chords if you are able - Rachmaninov never intended spread chords here

[JK]

Play chords if you are able - Rachmaninov never intended spread chords here

hmm, I'm not convinced by this, listen to Rachmaninoffs' own recording and he spreads the chords, he has no reason to do this as he had massive hands....

[Op. 1 No. 2]

hmm, I'm not convinced by this, listen to Rachmaninoffs' own recording and he spreads the chords, he has no reason to do this as he had massive hands....

I have two recordings of Rachmaninov playing the concerto himself, one from 1924 and one from 1929, and he doesn't roll the chords in those.

[piano88]

hmm, I'm not convinced by this, listen to Rachmaninoffs' own recording and he spreads the chords, he has no reason to do this as he had massive hands....

Hmmmmm. Are you sure??? I've never heard this done by him. And they're cretainly not written spread in the score!
AD

[JK]

Hmmmmm. Are you sure??? I've never heard this done by him. And they're cretainly not written spread in the score!
AD

Yep, definately on the recording I have of him playing it he spreads most of the opening chords, I guess it was the "romantic" thing to do back then. No they're not written in the score, I guess this is a sore point for me as when i played this piece earlier this year, I had to split the chords (all but the first), and even now my hands aren't big enough, I guess they never will be....!

[piano88]

Yep, definately on the recording I have of him playing it he spreads most of the opening chords, I guess it was the "romantic" thing to do back then. No they're not written in the score, I guess this is a sore point for me as when i played this piece earlier this year, I had to split the chords (all but the first), and even now my hands aren't big enough, I guess they never will be....!

Wouldn't worry about it. Plenty of excellent recordings with the spreads.....i'm lucky I can just about do it!
AD

[pianiststrongbad]

I would play these as written not just as chords.  I think there is a reason Rachmaninoff wrote this the way he did.  When I heard Olga Kern play this peice last year she played it as written.  And if she does it this way, I will do it too because I think she's amazing.

[piano88]

I would play these as written not just as chords. I think there is a reason Rachmaninoff wrote this the way he did. When I heard Olga Kern play this peice last year she played it as written. And if she does it this way, I will do it too because I think she's amazing.

Erm, what do you mean "not just as chords". That IS how they are written......slightly confused by that, or do you hold a different edition to the rest of us?

And Olga Kern, theres a name that I thought had been lost in the Piano Competition Forgotten Hall of Fame.....a bit like whosit who won the Leeds......

[Motrax]

Like Orozco who won the Leeds, and died in relative obscurity. 

No, Kern is actually a rather amazing pianist. Her interperetations are whimsical - they work sometimes and they utterly miss the mark other times. But more to the point, she plays with a lot of sincerity, and she commands quite a great deal of control over the soudn she creates. And she has magnificent stage presence.