Psycho

TL;DR: Rachmaninoff is <3

If i were to name my favorite composer, I suppose I would have to say Rachmaninoff. why do I like him. Firstly, his melodic gift was in my opinion, is one of the greatest of the 20th century and his music is very, extremely, expressive; filled with passion and emotion. Probably the first time I heard of him was in an old meme with a caption that u need really large hands to play Rachmaninoff or something. I just shrug him off assuming he was just some Russian dude with uninterestingly difficult music. I heard of his name again in an anime and thought hey, his arrangements are pretty good but still wasn't convinced to try his own compositions. Then i got to listen to one of his Preludes in a video clip. It has this kinda boring lento/slow beginning with dark chords, typical of Rachmaninoff until it broke out into a fast, agitated section. I was quite amazed tbh. It was probably the first piece of his that I fell in love with. And then I came across his Second Piano Concerto in C minor by accident (I think I clicked on it because it has hefty number of views). It also starts with slow, soft warm-up chords and then it gets louder and louder moves to a more frenetic pace with the flowing arpeggios and with the orchestra joining in and it just goes back and forth; interwoven with gorgeous melodies and harmonies combined with great virtuosity that usually make up Rach's music. I learned of his Third Concerto from the movie "Shine" with the guys in the film describing it as a beast and the protagonist frantically practicing it and fainting after performing it. It's intro melody and the fiendish cadenza/solo passage caught my ears. It sounded really flashy and beautiful at the same time and I must say, I like his Third Concerto more than the second one although his second is as special in its unique way.

To recap, his second and third piano concertos are his best works imo and have some of the most beautiful, melancholic melodies I've ever heard, more so the second. I'm not entirely sure how to describe my feelings when I listen to them. They're just magical. When I later digged through his other works, I found myself growing fonder by the minute. Some say that his music is just straight up sad and depressing. And to address his sometimes mildly depressing and sentimental compositions, he 'was' very much a depressed person, and unhappy (because he couldn't return to his country and the premier of his first symphony being a catastrophic failure after which he fell into depression, composing very little to none. In fact, his Second Piano Concerto was said to be a comeback from his depression after years of therapy and he even dedicated it to his therapist). His Etude-tableaux are generally depressive music...for me anyway and these were not just etudes as the name suggests but pictures, tableaux, within the etudes. And being the sad person he was, so was his music, but it's also one of the most passionate I've ever heard. I wish to play his music one day