Form
Compared with its predecessors, the Fourth Concerto contains sharper thematic profiles along with a refinement of textures in keyboard and orchestra. These qualities do not lead to greater simplicity but to a different sort of complexity. It was also a continuation of Rachmaninoff's long-range creative growth: the Third Concerto and the recomposed First Concerto were less heavily orchestrated than the Second Concerto. In keeping with its general character, the Fourth Concerto is lighter still, yet more oblique.
The concerto is in three movements:
- Allegro vivace (G minor)
- Largo (C major)
- Allegro vivace (G minor → D-Flat Major → G major)
Rachmaninoff had already been making a more extensive use of short thematic motifs and strong rhythmic patterns in his Op. 32 Preludes, in place of what was called the "unmentionable restlessness" that made his work, especially the concertos, a distressing experience for some musicians. This refinement of musical language, especially in orchestration, went back at least to The Bells and a more astringent tone was already noticeable in songs like "The Raising of Lazarus", Op. 34, No. 6.
Read more about this topic: Piano Concerto No. 4 (Rachmaninoff)
Famous quotes containing the word form:
“[One cannot express lack of knowledge in affirmative language.] This idea is more firmly grasped in the form of interrogation: “What do I know?”Mthe words I bear as a motto, inscribed over a pair of scales.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The importance of its hat to a form becomes
More definite. The sweeping brim of the hat
Makes of the form Most Merciful Capitan,
If the observer says so....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)