Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Op. 43


The trauma of being forced to leave Russia in 1917 left its mark on Rachmaninoff’s output: between then and his death in 1943 he completed only six original works. The combination of homesickness and the punishing touring schedule he had to undertake in order to provide for his family both took their toll, and his inspiration seemed to desert him.


Of those six works, four were composed in the 1930s. The revival of his compositional activity was partly a result of his feeling more settled: he built a villa by Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, which he christened Senar (a portmanteau of his and his wife’s names). He spent every summer until 1939 at Senar, which more than one visitor observed had the atmosphere of the kind of Russian homestead where Rachmaninoff had spent his youth. As well as recreating the kind of home he was familiar with from his childhood (all the staff at Senar were Russian), he was also able to indulge his love of gadgetry and novelty by acquiring a speedboat which he would race across the lake.


Although his schedule did not permit him to compose prolifically, the works he did complete during this time rank as some of his finest: The Corelli Variations, the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, the Third Symphony and the Symphonic Dances all date from this period. These works on the whole were less well received by audiences than his earlier music, but the Rhapsody was an immediate hit and quickly established itself as a necessary part of any pianist’s repertoire. In 1937 the choreographer Mikhail Fokin approached Rachmaninoff with the idea of a ballet on the legend of Paganini, using the Rhapsody. This was eventually produced at Covent Garden in 1939. Rachmaninoff had planned to attend but in the event was unable to as he had injured himself in a fall. The advent of war meant he would never have the opportunity to visit London again.


These late works all see Rachmaninoff expanding his outlook as a composer. They are more adventurous in his harmony and orchestration, occasionally nodding towards Prokofiev as the most prominent of the younger generation of Russian composers. Thus the Rhapsody, while it is as generously upholstered as one might expect from its composer, has its voluptuousness tempered with a certain amount of brittle, steely wit. Rachmaninoff’s design for the work is one of his tightest and most successful. There are 24 variations, which group together into four distinct sections: The first ten variations form an opening “fast movement”, variations 11-15 are a moderate sequence in triple time, variations 16-18 correspond to a slow movement, and variations 19-24 a finale.


The theme itself is one of the most famous and widely appropriated themes, from Paganini’s 24th Caprice for solo violin. It has provided inspiration for a bewildering variety of musicians, from Brahms to Benny Goodman. Unusually, the first thing we hear is not the theme but the first variation: a skeletal outline which is then fleshed out by the appearance of the theme itself. The subsequent variations follow largely seamlessly and there is little point in cataloguing them here. However, one significant development that should be noted is in the sixth variation, in which Rachmaninoff introduces a countermelody in the form of his recurring obsession, the Dies Irae [“Day of Wrath”] plainchant from the Requiem mass. From hereon this shadows, and occasionally overwhelms the main theme.

The eleventh variation, a Lisztian cadenza, heralds the second “movement”: a moderate triple-time which builds in energy before evaporating in another cadenza. The sixteenth and seventeenth variations then introduce a mystical mood, which eventually softens into the eighteenth variation, in which Rachmaninoff inverts the theme (a process more readily associated with Bach or Schoenberg) to produce one of his finest melodies (“That one is for my agent”, he commented dryly.) The 19th-24th variations then form a finale, in which the Dies Irae is combined with the main theme in music of increasingly frenetic character. Everything seems to be building to an apocalyptic conclusion before Rachmaninoff pulls the rug from under everyone’s feet in a brilliantly deadpan conclusion.