Today we will enchant you with the help of the famous Russian composer, pianist, and conductor of the late Romantic period, Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff and his incredible piece - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer who lived between 1873 and 1943 and is considered one of the most incredible pianists of his day and a great representative of Romanticism in Russian classical music.
He composed the free Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini piano sheet music between the 3rd of July and the 18th of August 1934.
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was composed for symphony orchestra and solo piano, closely resembling a piano concerto.
He wrote this piece of art in his home in Switzerland, at the Villa Senar.
Rachmaninoff liked to interpret his own work, so, at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore in Maryland, he played the solo piano part on his own on the 7th of November 1934 with help from Philadelphia Orchestra.
Leopold Stokowski, an English conductor of Polish descent and one of the most prominent conductors of the 20th century was the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The orchestra for the free Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini piano sheets is as follows: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in Bâ™, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in C, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, glockenspiel, harp and strings.
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is set in A minor and has a length of 22-24 minutes and a complex structure, made of a set of 24 variations on the twenty-fourth and last of Niccolo Paganini’s Caprices for solo violin.
You can find the piece interpreted also by Michel Fokine in 1939, The Royal Ballet and Frederick Ashton.
