Piano Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1, was composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1891, when he was 19 years old. Rachmaninoff dedicated the work to Alexander Siloti. He revised the work in 1917.

The work is in three movements

• Vivace (F sharp minor)
• Andante cantabile (D major(
• Allegro scherzando (F sharp minor → F sharp major) [1917 version: Allegro vivace]

The first movement was premiered on 17 March 1892 at the Moscow Conservatoire, with the composer himself at the piano and Vasily Safonov conducting. The revised version was first performed in its entirety on 29 January 1919 in New York.

The concerto is one of a group of early works Rachmaninoff intended to revise, together with the Caprice Bohémien, Op. 12 and the Symphony No. 1, Op. 13.

The revised version has a tighter structure, more refined harmony, and more sophisticated piano writing and orchestration. The original thematic material is almost unchanged.

Selected Recordings

1. Sergei Rachmaninoff, pianist, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, recorded in 1941.
2. Byron Janis, pianist, with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1957.
3. Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist, with Andre Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1972.
4. Boris Berezovsky, pianist, with Dmitri Liss conducting the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded in 2006.

Media

External links

• Piano Concerto No. 1 was available at the International Music Score Library Project.
• Rachmaninoff's Works for Piano and Orchestra An analysis of Rachmaninoff's Works for Piano and Orchestra including the Piano Concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody

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