Rakhmaninov S. Concerto No 3 for piano and orchestra

Sergei Rakhmaninov (1873–1943) composed his Concerto 3 for piano and orchestra D minor op. 30 in 1909. The greatest part of its music was created during the summer, spent by Rakhmaninov in his estate Ivanovka located in the Tambov Region. It was that exact place, where the composer staid much since his green years. In the end of 1900ies it passed to his domain. As to the Concerto it was accomplished at the time of the composer's arrival to Moscow. Rakhmaninov always treated the genre of piano concerto as the embodiment of the most significant instrumental purports.

The Third Concerto occurred to be the kind of concerto-symphony, being second to none among the most large-scaled symphony cycles by its imaginative sphere. Simultaneously its thematic elaboration is based on the genre of a song concealed in the principal theme of the first movement. Rakhmaninov himself characterized this popular melody as follows: “The first theme in my Third Concerto is not borrowed either from folklore, or from ecclesiastic utility. It was simply invented this way! <…> I wanted to „sing” a melody on piano imitating the way vocalists would perform it. Meanwhile I had to find out the orchestral accompaniment suitable for to avoid the piano singing to have been muffled. That's all!” (“Reminiscences About Rakhmaninov.” Volume 2. Edition 5. Moscow, 1988, page 526).

The Third Concerto was firstly represented during Rakhmaninov's tour via the USA on November 28 and 30, 1909 in New York. The author acted as the soloist, Walther Damrosch conducted the concert. It's notable to mention, that the third performance of the Third Concerto was conducted by Gustav Mahler. 

That was the only mutual concert, where those two eminent composers-executants met on the stage on January 16, 1910. Russia gave evidence of the Third Concerto on January 4, 1910. Rakhmaninov himself played the solo part together with the conductor Yevgeniy Plotnikov, at the assembly of Moscow Symphonic Philharmonic Society.