Elegie from Opus 3 by Rachmaninov transcribed for Hammered Dulcimer and played by Peter Jones скачать в хорошем качестве

Elegie from Opus 3 by Rachmaninov transcribed for Hammered Dulcimer and played by Peter Jones

The virtuoso pianist, Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), composed this Elegie in E flat minor aged only 19. It was the first piece of his third work of five pieces entitled Pieces of Fantasy. Rachmaninov’s delicious harmonies permeate what is really a funeral dirge. The piece begins with brooding melancholy, then a middle section rises, uplifted by a major key suggesting the spirit ascending into heaven. But he soon returns to the minor key, climaxing with a loud final descending scale, reminding me of a coffin being covered with earth. This was a piece that Rachmaninov continued to play throughout his life at his concerts. His Symphony No. 1 had a disastrous premiere, leading him into a prolonged depression, from which he recovered with the help of a hypnotist, leading to his fabulous Piano Concerto No. 2. He had a prodigious musical memory, and at 6 feet 6 inches tall, had a prodigious hand stretch spanning 13 piano keys! In 1918, after the Russian Revolution, he left his fatherland, Russia, and settled in New York. He also had a villa on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, with a flat roof especially for sunbathing, where he spent summers from 1932 to 1939. He died from melanoma in Beverly Hills in 1943. Listen for romantic melancholy, soaring hope, and a descent into the earth, and hear why Rachmaninov’s Elegie remains so powerful to this day.