It is understandable that listeners who have heard only Sergei Rachmaninoff’s two or three most famous works might pigeonhole his style with adjectives such as sweeping, stirring or sentimental.
His music does, indeed, encompass those qualities, but it is also much more.
To help give audiences a deeper appreciation of this profound and surprisingly far-reaching Russian composer, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra is presenting an ambitious festival of his music spread across two weekends.
The event begins Friday and continues through Oct. 24 with four different programs, interspersing the composer’s biggest hits with choral and symphonic pieces, such as “The Isle of the Dead,” which are equally compelling yet rarely performed.
“Part of my intention was to shed light on these incredibly popular pieces . . . by setting them in the context of pieces that show just how much broader a figure and what an incredible musical mind he was,” said music director Jeffrey Kahane, who will lead all the concerts.
Rachmaninoff graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, having specialized in piano and composition. The disastrous premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in 1897 proved to be a psychological setback, but he soon recovered, finishing his popular Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901.
After the October Revolution, he fled Russia with his family, eventually arriving in New York in 1918, where he spent most of his life. After a period of creative silence, he wrote his Piano Concerto No. 4 in 1926 and a handful of subsequent works before his death in 1943.
Reflecting prevailing views at the time, English musicologist Eric Blom infamously dismissed Rachmaninoff’s “artificial and gushing tunes” in the 1954 edition of the authoritative Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Blom went on to assert that “the enormous popular success some few of Rachmaninoff’s works had in his lifetime is not likely to last.” Few predictions in classical music have proven to be more misguided or derided.
More than a half-century after Blum’s prognostication, the composer is more popular and respected than ever. But because some of his best works remain little performed, many listeners still do not have a full picture of his musical breadth.
To help fill in some of those gaps, the festival will include full or partial performances of three of the composer’s rarely heard choral works, which Kahane ranks as the composer’s greatest accomplishments.
Among them will be “The Bells,” a 1913 folk-infused piece inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s poem of the same title. Kahane has included it on a program with the Piano Concerto No. 2, which opens with its own allusion to bells, and he believes that hearing the pieces together will alter perceptions of the concerto.
The festival’s centerpiece will be a rare presentation of all four of the composer’s piano concertos, as well as his celebrated “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” also written for piano and orchestra.
Rachmaninoff is considered one of history’s towering pianists, and each of these pieces offers a barrage of technical challenges. To perform all five of them together is a Herculean task, and to undertake it, the orchestra called on 34-year-old Russian pianist Olga Kern.
The co-winner of the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has presented the set of five works just twice — once in South Africa and another time with the Warsaw Philharmonic.
“Honestly, I just can’t do it very often,” Kern said. “You see all the changes — his evolution in such a short period of time. It’s incredible. But at the same time, it takes so much from me — physically, emotionally, everything.”
The Second Piano Concerto and Third Piano Concerto are the most popular, and Kern has played them many times, along with the “Rhapsody,” which she learned when she was 12 years old.
She is excited to have a chance to also perform the two other less-frequently heard concertos because she believes both have plenty to offer, as well, especially the Fourth, with its more daring musical language.
“It’s not a big piece, but it takes a lot from the orchestra and from the soloist just to put this piece together,” she said. “This is why probably not so many orchestras play it. But it’s a pity because I’m telling you, it’s a great piece, as well.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675; kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Rachmaninoff Festival
Who: Conductor Jeffrey Kahane, pianist Olga Kern
What: Classical music. The Colorado Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff with four different programs of his music spread over two weekends.
Where: Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 23 and 24. $15-$75. 303-623-7876 or
PROGRAMS
Friday: Piano Concerto No. 1, “Three Russian Songs,” Symphony No. 3
Saturday and Sunday: Piano Concerto No. 3, “Isle of the Dead,” “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”
Oct. 23: Piano Concerto No. 4, “Symphonic Dances”
Oct. 24: Piano Concerto No. 2, Alleluia from “Vespers,” “The Bells”
