Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor

In December 1917, following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his wife, Natalia, fled Russia for Sweden and the United States—they would later divide their time between residences in America and their house on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Rachmaninoff missed his homeland deeply, and living in exile took its toll on his creativity as he initially devoted his time to playing concerts and rewriting earlier scores. His first ideas for the Piano Concerto No. 4 came into being as early as 1914. Written in three movements, it shows his penchant for shorter thematic motifs. This concerto does not have the same expansive sweep as his earlier ones, although it certainly has its moments, not least in the wonderful way the first piano entry surfs the crest of an orchestral wave, carrying us immediately into the exposition. What would these ideas have become had he been able to explore them at his much-loved Ivanovka estate, where so many of his masterpieces had been conceived? We’ll never know. Rather its continual reworkings—Rachmaninoff edited the piece heavily following its unsuccessful premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1927, and he revised it again toward the end of his life—speak of a Romantic composer out of kilter with his time, struggling to find his voice in a foreign land.