Rachmaninoff - Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36 (Horowitz) скачать в хорошем качестве

Rachmaninoff - Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36 (Horowitz)

Many of Rachmaninoff's solo pieces have their own ingenuity that can place them in a leaderboard of the greatest works in piano literature. However, there's three works in particular that contain so much of the composer's genius that even with Rachmaninoff's high standards, blow the other pieces clean out of the water. Those three pieces would be; the Chopin Variations, a display of mastery in variation form; the first sonata, a colossal beast that ventures through an entire universe's worth of material; and finally, this behemoth. What sets this piece apart from the others? There's a lot of elements to what makes this piece great, but three come to mind: First is the motivic construction. Despite its length of twenty minutes, almost every musical idea in the piece is entirely derived from just the very first nine seconds. The sonata opens with the sudden crash of an arpeggio followed a falling third and a descending chromatic melody, the two main motifs of the piece. These two motifs are particularly widespread; there's probably at least some form of the motifs every twenty seconds or so. Which brings us to our next point; Rachmaninoff's mastery in transformation. Sometimes he restates a previous idea but manipulates it to the point where it's barely on the line between recycled and new. Look carefully at the right hand in 14:43; the melodic shape is that of an inverted and retrograded rendition of the chromatic motif. Or the reentrance of the second movement's main theme at 12:49, where Rachmaninoff manipulates the theme's rhythm to make it sound like a completely new subject. Then is the extremity of the movements. It's hard to think of a bigger contrast; the hellish, dystopian wasteland of the first movement, the languid, melancholic tides of the second movement, and the ecstatic triumph of the third movement. With each of their vivid personalities, the piece doesn't slip right through your ears; it gets engraved into your head. Rachmaninoff originally composed the sonata in 1913, but made revisions to the piece in 1931. The revisions are typical of Rachmaninoff; simplifying technically demanding passages and cutting out "unnecessary" passages. However, what sets this revision apart from Rachmaninoff's other revisions is that his revisions of the other works are generally considered to be the superior version. In the sonata's case, most consider the 1913 to be superior. Vladimir Horowitz took middle ground between the two versions; he adopted the 1913 version's texturing but modeled the sonata's structure after the 1931. The result is interesting and pretty effective; Horowitz's version is shorter and more concise than the original, yet it retains most of the important passages and highlights that the 1931 version is missing. At 12:25 Horowitz breaks a string in the climax, which sounds absolutely unreal at    • Horowitz plays Rachmaninoff Sonata No...   Note that in the original recording a staff member interrupts the performance to remove the broken string, and Horowitz continues from before the climax. This section is cut out. 00:00 - First Movement 08:18 - Second Movement 13:54 - Third Movement Composer - Sergei Rachmaninoff Composition - Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36 Year of composition - 1913 + 1931 Performer - Vladimir Horowitz Year of recording - 1968 _________________________________________________________________________________________________ All credits go to their respective owners. Audio source -    • Vladimir Horowitz plays Rachmaninoff ...