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London City Philharmonic

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Olsi Qinami

Instrumentalist

Angela Szu-Hsuan Wu

Piano

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Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 - Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

London

United Kingdom

St James's Church, Sussex Gardens

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 - Stravinsky The Rite of Spring: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, op. 18 Rachmaninoff (+1 More)

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Piano Concerto No. 2, op. 18

The Rite of Spring

Alejandro Alberto Giess Sarmiento

Approved

Piano Angela Szu-Hsuan Wu

Conductor Olsi Qinami

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor op.18

The work opens with the soloist sounding a series of chords that ring like church bells, and grow in
both volume and intensity. Interestingly for a piano concerto, the soloist’s role in this movement is
largely one of accompaniment, until one of Rachmaninoff ’s most familiar and beloved themes
emerges. The music continues with a rousing march in the piano, which dissolves into a solo horn
intoning the second theme.
The sensual beauty of the Adagio sostenuto creates an atmosphere of enchanted otherworldliness. The
primary melody is heard first in the clarinet and flute, with the piano accompanying. The soloist takes
up the melody and develops it, with accompanying woodwinds and strings.
In the Allegro scherzando, the lower instruments murmur a brief introduction to the soloist’s opening
showy cadenza, which segues into the staccato pulsing rhythm of the first theme. The violas and solo
oboe’s lyrical second theme is a marked contrast. The two themes vie for prominence as the mood of
this movement shifts abruptly from jittery agitation to ecstatic rhapsody. Rachmaninoff concludes with
a pull-out-all-the-stops ending showcasing the rhapsodic theme.
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Stravinsky’s initial concept for The Rite of Spring came to him in 1910, while he was working on The
Firebird. Over the years, Stravinsky claimed several different origins of the ideas for The Rite of Spring,
each contradicting the others.
The Rite of Spring is written in two large sections, “The Adoration of the Earth” and “The Sacrifice,”
each containing many smaller sections with their own titles. The musical structure is formed around
many repeating rhythmic patterns, called ostinatos. Stravinsky also quotes fragments of melodies from a
number of different Russian and Lithuanian folk songs. What gives The Rite of Spring its unique energy
is Stravinsky’s innovative decision to abandon a steady beat in favor of constantly shifting ostinatos and
melodic fragments.
Much has been written about the riot that broke out at the first performance of The Rite of Spring. The
uproar was actually a response to Vaslav Nijinsky’s provocative choreography rather than to the music
itself. Most reviews of the opening performance paid little attention to the music, aside from
mentioning Stravinsky as the composer

English

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 - Stravinsky The Rite of Spring by Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, From (2023/2023), Conductor Olsi Qinami, St James's Church, Sussex Gardens, London, United Kingdom

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