I adore this piece. Listen to that opening -- dramatic, glimmering chords and arpeggios like a serene, starry November night. There's beauty and romance with a hint of sorrow. Around 3:45, there's a burst of passion, excitement, devotion... There's a cadenza at 9:45, swaggering, sassy, dramatic, before culminating, at 11:35 in the prideful, sorrowful victory typical of Rachmaninoff.
Rachmaninoff wrote this when he was a teenager, filled with zest for life -- and it shows. It's filled with yearning for adventure, the raw passion of youth, and the thrill of first romance.
This is the dream of every pianist I've met; indeed, it's not only extroadinary, but far more deep and philosophical than any music I've ever heard. It truly pushes the limits of what music is. There's happy music, there's sad music, then there's music like this. Music embodying a philosophy, a way of life. Music about courage, destiny, love, heartbreak, and death.
This piece is an exploration of fate and miracles. The first movement is about having hope despite great sorrow, and finding beauty despite suffering. The third movement is truly what rends the heart. Like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich, it concerns the love and forgiveness one may have for everyone just before leaving this world. And yet at the end, there's the typical Rachmaninovian miracle -- the piece melts into pure, radiant joy, and all gloom is purged as if by sunlight. It's cathartic and spiritually releasing.
Merely listening drives one to tears -- imagine playing it! Yet some people are capable of that.