PART I
The "minorness" of Rachmaninoff's
aesthetics and where (not) to
look for its origins
1. Structural principle and gesture
2. Old and New in Rachmaninoff's
Manuscript
3. Hypertrophy-but not in interpretation
4. Appassionato vs sostenuto
5. Feel-and what to do with it
6. How the “very old composer”
Rachmaninov teaches new things
PART II
Approaching the second
half of the motto
look at the old as the
new and the new as the old
3. Hypertrophy - but not in interpretation
Rachmaninoff often uses hypertrophy of a principle. He puts things under a magnifying glass and observes them. He monumentalizes a fundamentally simple element which, in context, comes across as wonderfully unambiguous, pure and powerful. This effect of musical fabric monumentalization is another of his favourite devices. As well as embellishing a scheme, a stereotype, he achieves by this close, magnified observation of things that the view of the structure is suddenly different. A striking example is the Etude-Tableaux, Op. 39, No. 7 in c minor, which is all one hypertrophy. In terms of musical texture, by exaggeration of the movement of the second, and in terms of the huge areas in the piano pianissimo shading.
Example no. 7: Rachmaninoff – Etude-Tableaux op. 39 no.7
However, by the fact that the hypertrophy is already used in the texture itself, the role of the performer is rather to "cool", purify and illuminate it well. To let it stand out, and to get out of its way. (Forget that you are the poet and let the phenomenon take place without your knowledge...) To magnify the already magnified, unless our intention is caricature, is a common and fatal interpretive error.
