Strings 'n' Things...

It’s my wife’s birthday, and as per her request we went to see the Oregon Symphony (w/ James DePreist conducting, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg soloist; we may be a largely rural state, but we can pull the talent) and I had an interesting thought half-way through the final piece, Rach #2.

The thing about Rachmaninoff in general, and the 2nd Symphony in particular, that I never really noticed until now, is that it is a relatively young piece as classical standards go, only a hundred years old. That being the case, there is melodic similarity between his symphonies and what we in 2007 would consider, what, epic film music? Very “Gone With The Wind,” anyways. Whereas, you take your Beethoven or Mozart or what-have-you, and while there is obvious parentage (especially in the latter case) of much Western music, you kind of have to be deep in to the math of it to really recognize it. But ol’ Rach, well, there’s film and records of him. He’s actually quite contemporary when you get down to it.

No real reason for this; just thinking out loud.