Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody

Sergei Rachmaninoff declared, I try to make my music speak simply and directly that which is in my heart. Michael Davidman, who triumphed to win the American Piano Awards, plays Rachmaninoff’s ravishing Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Rachmaninoff premiered his final work for piano and orchestra with the composer as the piano soloist in 1934. Inspired by the famous 16-bar tune from Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 for Solo Violin, the same theme also influenced works by Brahms and Franz Liszt. Rachmaninoff’s now-too-rarely-heard Youth Symphony opens the program, a piece that showed more than