Scott Davie, a pianist and lecturer in Russian music history at the Sydney Conservatorium, recently found an unpublished sketch by Rachmaninoff in the composer’s archives at the Washington Library of Congress.
Whilst researching for his PhD on the composer’s melodies, Davies was amazed to uncover a two page sketch in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s hand, it was hidden in a pile of blank manuscript pages where it had languished for possibly 60 years. Davie was permitted to make a copy, which he brought back to Sydney.
Davie described it as; eclectic, short-form, pictorial, experimental, harmonically unpredictable and modern – in fact, this was possibly the most modern phase of his composing life.
As the sketch was on Russian manuscript paper unlikely to have been available in the West, Davie concluded it was probably one of the few possessions Rachmaninoff important enough to take into exile with at the time of the 1917 revolution. The piece is a template of Rachmaninoff’s style in his last 4 years in Russia, which didn’t really continue after that period. Davie is presenting the world premiere of the Rachmaninoff find on Pictures from an exhibition. an ABC Classics CD.
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