Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto & Symphony No. 2
Fujita, Chailly, Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Sergei Rachmaninov, who left Russia after the October Revolution in 1917 and toured the world as a piano virtuoso, found a new home at Lake Lucerne in the early 1930s. In Hertenstein, where he enjoyed the tranquility and the beauty of nature, he had a villa built in the latest Bauhaus style. Then World War II broke out, and he fled again, this time to the USA.

For Riccardo Chailly, celebrating Rachmaninoff in Lucerne is something dear to his heart. This summer, he is devoting himself to the Second Symphony and the Second Piano Concerto, the most famous of all four Rachmaninoff concertos. The premiere of the 2nd Piano Concerto took place in Moscow 120 years ago, in October 1901, with Sergei Rachmaninoff himself at the piano. This concerto earned him his international breakthrough. Right from the first bars, the mood the composer creates is inimitably melancholic. In the energetic Moderato movement, the themes are elaborated as in a classical sonata, and in the Adagio that follows, a mesmerizing love song emerges with enchanting melodies. A breathtaking finale finally ends this pompous work, with which the genre of the Romantic piano concerto had reached its absolute climax.

“The harmonic ideas are his special hallmark. One need only hear three chords to recognize his creative genius immediately,” Principal Conductor Chailly once said of Rachmaninoff’s timbres. Japanese pianist Mao Fujita takes on this grandiose work’s emotional power and virtuosity. Since winning the silver medal in the XVI Chopin Competition in 2019, this exceptional artist, just 23 years old, has been playing in the world’s most renowned concert halls.