A Terrific Tube Preamplifier From Korea, And A - Ultra High Fidelity ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Software Feedback would accompany him on his flight in multiple hearings. Rachmaninoff was Prelude was performed in a group of five 1917. Notable among many other pieces unlucky in the critics of the first per- pieces around New Year’s of 1893 as were songs, occasional pieces for the formance, especially César Cui of St. Opus 3, Morceaux de Fantaisie, dedicated daughters of the Skalon family with Petersburg who decried the “evil impres- to Arensky. Tchaikovsky received a copy whom he spent summers at Ivanovka, sion” of the work, its “sickly, perverse of the Morceaux in February and greatly the Trio Élégiaque No. 1, a symphonic harmonization” and “complete absence liked it, especially the C sharp minor. On poem or suite, Manfred, which is now of simplicity and naturalness, complete the publication of Op. 3 later that year, lost, another symphonic poem, Prince absence of themes.” Rachmaninoff was called “a man of great Rostislav, which was not performed until Cui’s opinion bore weight, since he promise.” 1945 and a transcription for four hands was one of the “Mighty Handful” of He eventually got 500 rubles for of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, which composers, including Rimsky-Korsakov Aleko, the Opus 2 cello pieces and the the older composer disliked and which and Borodin, dedicated since the 1860’s songs of Opus 4, plus 200 more for the had to be reworked by Rachmaninoff’s to creating a Russian nationalist school of five Morceaux Op. 3, which meant the piano teacher, Siloti. music. Such opinions may be attributed Prelude went for 50 rubles. Russia had Also during this time he gave his first to tunnel vision and a vituperative pen, not signed the 1886 Berne Convention, public concert and fell ill, after swim- yet perhaps Rachmaninoff should have thus Russian publishers did not have to ming in the Matîr river in August 1891, seen it coming. The conductor, Alexan- pay royalties, and Rachmaninoff never with a malaria-like fever which would der Glazunov, had been indifferent to got another cent for what was to become periodically recur. His growing friend- the music, saying it had “a lot of feeling one of the most popular piano solo pieces ship with a Skalon daughter, Natalia, but no sense.” Rehearsals went badly. of the 20 inspired a correspondence which lasted A former teacher, Tanaieff, described the next twelve years. the melodies as “flabby, colorless,” and Because Siloti quit the Conservatory Rimsky-Korsakov did not find it at all in 1891 after a change of director, Rach- agreeable. But Rachmaninoff had had maninoff, now without his teacher, asked few musical failures in the years leading to take the final piano examination a year up to this, and perhaps he did not wish early. Though he had but three weeks to to believe the signs. If so, he had reason prepare, he graduated with honors and to regret it. Cui added to his obtuse then asked Arensky if he could take his comments by comparing the work to composition exams early as well, in the “a symphony on the Seven Plagues of spring of 1892. Egypt,” meant for an audience in Hell. This was agreed to but on condition Rachmaninoff took it very hard. He that he do the work, which was, among put the manuscripts of the symphony other things, to compose a symphony. aside, including a transcription for two This he did, in two movements of pianos, and left them behind when he which one has been lost. The other was fled Moscow in 1917. They were redis- published in 1947 as the Youthful Symcovered in incomplete form and used phony, modelled on the first movement to reconstruct the work for its second of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. His performance, in Moscow on October 17, final piece, the opera Aleko, was received 1945, nearly fifty years later. with great warmth by Tchaikovsky, was However t he post-graduat ion accepted and performed to acclaim by summer of 1892 held no sign of later the Bolshoi Orchestra, and is still per- failure. Rachmaninoff found himself on formed occasionally to this day. All told an estate northeast of Moscow, fighting it was a period of remarkable accomplish- boredom, giving daily piano lessons to ment, crowned with his diploma and the the son of the estate owner, and correct- right, first instituted by Catherine the ing his first proofs for publication by Great, to call himself “Free Artist.” Gutheil. He had a short relapse of fever. At 19, Rachmaninoff could well con- In September he had still not received sider that a composing career lay before payment from Gutheil, so he agreed to him. appear in concert at the Moscow Electri- Looking back, we know that the next cal Exhibition. He played shorter pieces, milestone of his career, in 1897, was to among them the first movement of be a personal disaster whose repercus- Anton Rubinstein’s Concerto No. 1. There sions lasted years. Yet Rachmaninoff’s was also a Prelude in C sharp minor which First Symphony is a distinguished work, he had just written and which “aroused well-made and exuberant, which repays enthusiasm,” according to a review. This th Get the complete version No, this free version is not complete, though you could spend a couple of hours reading it. Want the full version? You can, of course, order the print version, which we have published for a quarter of a century. You can get it from our back issues page. But we also have a paid electronic version, which is just like this one, except that it doesn’t have annoying banners like this one, and it doesn’t have articles tailing off into faux Latin. Getting the electronic version is of course faster, and it is also cheaper. It costs just $4.30 (Canadian) anywhere in the world. Taxes, if they are applicable, are included. It’s available from MagZee.com. century (although he was paid for his later recordings of it for Edison, Victor and Ampico). We shall have to go rather quickly over the accomplishments of the next four years, but 1893 was exceptional. He was housed that summer in a speciallybuilt three-storey wooden tower in the garden of the Lysikof estate, the result of having told his music-loving hosts that he liked to work outdoors. There he composed the “sacred concerto” O Mother of God Perpetually Praying and the two-piano Op. 5 Fantaisie Tableaux, later known as the Suite No. 1. He described the latter to Natalia Skalon as “a series of musical pictures.” He also produced two Morceaux de Salon Op. 6 and the orchestral poem The Rock, which Tchaikovsky greatly approved of and wished to conduct. However Tchaikovsky died suddenly in October 1893, and The Rock’s first performance, in 1896, ended up being conducted by Alexander Glazunov. With the death of Tchaikovsky, Russian music had lost its greatest living composer, and Rachmaninoff a precious mentor and supporter. In the great Romantic’s memory, he composed the Trio Élégiaque No. 2, Op. 9. He was not perfectly satisfied with this work, more ambitious than the earlier one, and revised it in 1906, 1917 and again in 1932 (for a performance by Milstein, Piatigorsky and Horowitz). His final production of 1893 was the seven pieces of the Op. 10 Morceaux de salon. 66 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
It is worth noting that although the first phonographs already existed, a musical evening during the later 19 th century would more than likely be spent around a piano. Rachmaninoff’s collections of shorter pieces of varying difficulty were most often bought for such moments; in all, he published seven groups of them. In the summer of 1894 he orchestrated a piano duet written two years earlier, based on Gypsy themes, which became the Capriccio Bohémien. In 1895 he began work on the First Symphony. By October Rachmaninoff had not only completed the composition and orchestration of the work, but had also transcribed it for two pianos — a fortunate accomplishment which turned out to be essential to our knowledge of this symphony today. He was short of money during this period. He took off on a demanding Baltic tour with a violin-playing Italian countess, but cut it short owing to nonpayment of fees and returned to Moscow, where he had to pawn the watch Zveref had given him. The year 1896 saw revisions of the First Symphony manuscript with the advice of Tanaieff, and a date was fixed for its first performance. He attempted to compose but did not finish a string quartet. He also composed the twelve songs of Opus 14. He was a prolific and indeed masterful composer of songs; this was his third song collection of a lifetime total of seven. His much better-known piano groups number just seven, as do his orchestral pieces. We have seen the unfortunate birth of the First Symphony and its consequences. In 1898 Rachmaninoff’s former teacher, Siloti, toured Western Europe and the US, and one of his program items was the C sharp minor Prelude, Op. 3 No. 2, written in the summer of 1892. It was so popular that London publishers, unbound by copyright, smelled a profit and brought out multiple editions with names like The Burning of Moscow. Thanks to Siloti, Rachmaninoff at least got an invitation to perform for the London Philharmonic Society, which he did in 1899 on his first trip outside Russia. On this occasion he conducted The Rock and played the first two Morceaux de Fantaisie. Reviews, not generally sympathetic to foreign music, already described the Prelude as hackneyed. Rachmaninoff was nonetheless praised for his conducting and orchestration and invited to come back the following year. Ultimately the Prelude in C sharp minor became so popular that a highbrow prejudice developed against it. Rachmaninoff apparently came to dread being expected to play it; when one manager said that he hoped it would be on the concert program, Rachmaninoff replied that he “didn’t need to be reminded to do his duty.” On another occasion, in 1922, the Prelude’s fans caused a humiliating commotion by calling for it repeatedly, applauding it during its execution, and in the end refusing to leave, at least until the hall lights were finally turned out. Published under many names, including Moscow Waltz, the C sharp minor was turned into more than one piano rag, including the Russian Rag, which made more money for its composer than the original piece had for Rachmaninoff himself. Op. 3 No. 2 was adapted for all sorts of instruments, from trombone quartet to solo banjo. Countless amateurs murdered it. <strong>And</strong> how galling for Rachmaninoff ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 67 Software Feedback
Page 1 and 2:
No. 89 CAN $6.49 / US $7.69 RETURN
Page 3 and 4:
Issue No. 89 Cover story: Two of th
Page 5 and 6:
I HATE DOG EARS! (SORRY FIDO) We’
Page 7 and 8:
I’m looking forward to the Simaud
Page 9 and 10:
started talking to me and I was sta
Page 11 and 12:
I’m using a Cardas Lightning cabl
Page 13 and 14:
Leslie, it’s painful to realize t
Page 15 and 16: music from a computer via Ethernet
Page 17 and 18: school or community centre, perhaps
Page 19 and 20: ut the tone of the warning seems wr
Page 21 and 22: I remember when Israel Blume of Coi
Page 23 and 24: I may have mentioned that there is
Page 25 and 26: Thiel was back at CES, exhibiting a
Page 27 and 28: Touring the Salon there many turnta
Page 29 and 30: Below left: the Vivid B-1, designed
Page 31 and 32: tunately so, because computer softw
Page 33 and 34: The new ASW Genius 110 One of the i
Page 35 and 36: tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver
Page 37 and 38: scene, such as a video game page. T
Page 39 and 40: THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: Issues
Page 41 and 42: Adding it to a CD player There are
Page 43 and 44: output of our Macbook Pro to the 30
Page 45 and 46: a quality switch with an array of f
Page 47 and 48: Leema Elements Phono Preamp Yes, wh
Page 49 and 50: Your System Belongs on the Wall Tar
Page 51 and 52: The t wo woofers and the midrange d
Page 53 and 54: Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore
Page 55 and 56: INTERCONNECTS ATLAS NAVIGATOR Oxyge
Page 57 and 58: UHF14 POWER BAR Most power bars kno
Page 59 and 60: ed pepper to its music. Felix Hell
Page 61 and 62: Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante (XRCD)
Page 63 and 64: Gentlemen, I, Rachmaninoff, have ju
Page 65: painful scenes at home, and after a
Page 69 and 70: announcement of impending marriage
Page 71 and 72: lending moment to arrive sooner tha
Page 73 and 74: that would have called for a retake
Page 75 and 76: any woman who is not married to som
Page 77 and 78: All You Can Watch for $8 It was Net
Page 79 and 80: The Magic Without 3D What’s domin
Page 81 and 82: Industry News Dan d’Agostino is b
Page 83 and 84: Why do UHF readers start reading th
show all

A Terrific Tube Preamplifier From Korea, And A - Ultra High Fidelity ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?