Play on!

There was nothing on TV last night until 10 PM, when my new heartthrob Castle was due with a sparkly new episode, so I settled into some favorite old music. I chose Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony. Once upon a time, we were all excited to go hear this pistol performed by the Honolulu Symphony, only to find they had wimped out and substituted Beethoven's 5th, a very sturdy workhorse, indeed, but not the prancing, snorting stallion I had expected. This music has the distinction of never quite sounding the same, depending on the rendition. Gee, even the cadenzas in concertos are scripted these days. What gives? Well, it is so multifaceted, so prismatic, it must be easy to lose the delicate thread of line that is supposed to emerge at any given moment. I have owned three versions of it myself: vinyl, cassette, and CD. All are different. And the vinyl version, the one done by Eugene Ormandi, who premiered this work under the supervision of the composer, has always been the best for me. In my musical life, the 2nd symphony represented a major leap for me. I usually fell in love with a phrase or a melody, and suffered through the rest of the piece just to roll around in that emotional paydirt. And that was the original appeal of this work, too, except it was the entire third movement, a haunting ripple introduced by a solo clarinet before swelling like a tidal wave, sweeping through the entire orchestra. Then the rest of the work caught up, and it became all one thing, vast and awe inspiring. I reached a new level of sophistication in my quest to feed my soul. I headed off for my date with Castle, all new and juicy for the listening. Bless you, Sergei.