Tonight’s sets saw a huge amount of Rachmaninov – two box sets featuring performances by Vladimir Ashkenazy (symphonies and symphonic pieces in one, concertos with solo and piano duo pieces on the other) along with a single disc of his two piano trios. The late romanticism of Rachmaninov now is a bit of soft-spot for me though it hasn’t always been. I think it is important to keep in mind that many of his most important works were composed while Webern is experimenting with glistening orchestral clarity and Stravinsky was was writing his most daring ballets. Rachmaninov’s music was something I was snobbish about when I first started to take composing seriously… I saw it as derivative and schmaltzy. My opinion changed while I was at Cal and got to play the ‘Symphonic Dances’. After the first rehearsal or two, I felt like my suspicions of Rachmaninov were mostly confirmed. But as we got closer to the concert, I became more and more fascinated by the piece. After moving to Seattle I started some work on a set of piano pieces. Though they owe more to Ravel then to anyone else, I spent quite a bit of time listening to more and more Rachmaninov as well. The disc of piano trios is probably my favorite disc out of the discs I ripped tonight. The voicings in some of the melodic writing as well as the harmonic presentation is spaced quite wide sometimes. Surely this had quite a bit to do with the composer’s large hands and his unique ability to spread chords out quite a bit. At times they sound almost bell-like (and a little like Arvo Pärt). Some of the writing for the violin and cello also resembles some of the wider spacing of Ravel’s trio. By the time I started graduate school, my opinion of him had changed completely, but as the years went on though I listened less and less to him. Should be fun to return to some of this over the next day or two.