LDV45

JEAN-PHILIPPE COLLARD 21 The six Moments musicaux mark an important turning point in Rachmaninoff’s life and hismusical career.Written in the space of threemonths, betweenOctober and December 1896, they preceded his four years of artistic silence and psychological suffering. The sequence of six pieces, inspired by Schubert’s six Moments musicaux composed in 1828, reflects the artist’s melancholic and tormented state of mind. The structure of the cycle is founded on an alternation of slow, introspective moments and restless, more brilliant ones. Although it makes use of traditional forms such as the song without words, the barcarolle and the étude, this early work already bears the mark of a personal style that was to find full expression in his Second Concerto and heralds the rich and complex textures of the works to come. Rachmaninoff himself recorded the Moment musical no.2, a breathtaking chromatic étude, a document that still makes it possible even today to perceive the originality and individuality of his playing.