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Born this date. I remain as fascinated by and indebted to his music as I was when I first heard it way back when. I have written a great deal about Rachmaninoff here and elsewhere, including a big burst for his sesquicentennial two years ago. You can find a lot of that categorized here. Sometime soon I really need to write that big, epic essay about his Second Symphony. Here is the Israel Brass Quintet playing one of his most famous works, Vocalise. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Born this date: Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of my very favorite musical voices in history. Last year was his 150th, and it seemed to me that we did not hear nearly enough about him back then. I wrote quite a lot on Rachmaninoff last year, but I still didn’t finish my project; the big long walk-through post of his Symphony No. 2 is still locked in my mind. But it’s coming. Someday. Meanwhile, April should always include Rachmaninoff. Every month should include some Rachmaninoff, but particularly April. There’s something in the way Rachmaninoff exudes both optimistic hope and dark brooding, fromDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve been looking forward to this month for a while now! I actually started gathering ideas for an essay or two about Rachmaninoff a year ago, but then I looked up his dates and I realized that 2023 is his sesquicentennial. I’m not going to spend this month blogging about Rachmaninoff and nothing else–it’s also National Poetry Month, after all–but there’s going to be a lot of Rachmaninoff this month. And probably more over the rest of the year, because this is a composer who has meant a great deal to me for quite a few years…going back to high schoolDown the rabbit hole….

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I was going to spend this month writing about, among other things, composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who was born on April 1, 1873. Then I did the math and realized that a whole month-long focus on Rachmaninoff might be a better idea for next year, Rachmaninoff’s sesquicentennial. Meantime, I can’t let this great composer’s birth date go unmentioned, so here’s a wonderful performance of his Piano Concerto #2 in C minor, performed by Khatia Buniatishvili and the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. This is one of the finest performances of this work I have heard. Ms. Buniatishvili is anDown the rabbit hole….