The year is 1892. You’re walking down a dirty street in Moscow, your stomach rumbling, as you wonder when your next meal will be. Suddenly, as you pass the town’s exhibition center, you begin to hear the sound of a melancholic piano player. As you peak inside, you hear the music more clearly. But it doesn’t sound like music: it sounds like the carillon chimes of the Kremlin. So wouldn't it make sense to learn that the piece you’re hearing is nicknamed The Bells of Moscow? Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-sharp Minor Op. 3 No. 2” has been interpreted multiple ways throughout its history, and as one of my favorite classical piano pieces I believe it to be more than an appropriate artistic piece to interpret and analyze.
First and foremost, it's worth noting the era in which this was composed. During the 1890’s, Russia was suffering from an extreme famine on account of extreme weather conditions and underdeveloped agricultural technologies, making life in Russia extremely difficult and depressing, something that I believe Rachmaninoff aimed to allude to in this piece. The piece is written in C-sharp minor, which effectively creates a very dark and brooding tone that is sustained throughout the entire work — something I believe that Rachmaninoff did intentionally, to reflect the reality of life in Russia.
Rachmaninoff dramatized the famine, using some rather obscure techniques to express how miserable life was in Moscow and how the Russian people began to cry out to the likes of the Tsar and other Russian nobles for help; one of these techniques being his use of dynamic extremes. The opening of the piece is in fortissimo (ff), meaning very loud, a dynamic that is really only used in climactic moments in music. However, not even four measures later, Rachmaninoff tries to be a little sneak and quickly shifts the dynamics to a quiet piano and pianissimo (p and pp, respectively). Later, as the piece reaches its climax, Rachmaninoff even uses a quadruple sforzando (sffff), meaning to begin very quietly and quickly rise to a fortissississimo (ffff), which basically means play as loud as the piano will physically allow you to. In my almost ten years of playing piano, the “Prelude in C-sharp Minor” is the only piece I have ever played that demanded such a range in terms of volume, but it certainly emphasizes the emotions the player, audience, and composer are meant to feel.
One aspect of most wordless music that I enjoy is the interpretation of the pieces. Songs can have more than one interpretation (for example, is Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” about the transition from a cold, unforgiving winter to a beautiful and blooming spring? Or is it about how he at first hates being deaf, only to then realize that he doesn’t need to hear his wife complain all the time?), and “Prelude in C-sharp Minor” is no exception. One interpretation of this piece is that Rachmaninoff is telling a story in the life of a composer. Once, when asked why he wrote the piece, he said he did it “for 40 rubles,”, because that was the maximum he could be paid in royalties for playing the piece. The life of a composer was very hard, making barely enough to live off, and having to make new music over and over again in order to survive. The use of an ABA or ternary (where a first motif is introduced, a second motif is then introduced after, and then the song ends with the same first motif, usually in a more embellished fashion) style, acts as a musical allegory for the unforgiving repetition he feels as he drudges from one royalty check to the next, and the dread he feels if his music is unsuccessful and he is left broke.
A second interpretation (one which I personally find more enjoyable to think about) is that Rachmaninoff wrote this piece based on a dream. Rachmaninoff was only nineteen when he wrote this piece, and obviously during this time in any person’s life one can have very strong yet mixed emotions: starving in 19th century Russia probably didn’t help any either. It’s already apparent based on Rachmaninoff's use of dynamics that he was in some kind of race to be Russia’s edgiest teenager, but this dream of his was absolutely off the wall. As the soft opening chordal motif of the song begins, Rachmaninoff woke up in the middle of a funeral procession. Unsure of where he is, he slowly begins to make his way towards a coffin, presumably containing the dead person being mourned. As he slowly approaches the coffin, the piece transitions into running triplets, gradually growing louder and louder, and upon reaching the coffin, triplet chords begin to descend the piano. He finally opens the coffin, and as the piece reaches its grand climax (even requiring 2 sets of staves to achieve its fullest magnitude), Rachmaninoff opens the coffin only to find himself inside. As grim as that may sound, I believe that Rachmaninoff is making a comparison between how he feels about his own life as a starving musician in a Tsar-controlled Russia, and just straight up being dead.
There is something that can be taken away from this, however. In its entirety, I believe the theme of "Prelude in C-sharp Minor" is that life can be repetitive, drab, and depressing. Living in an era where food, money, and a decent ruler were hard to come by, this piece is definitely symbolic of how hopeless he felt. Even firsthand I can say, whenever I play this piece the air in the room seems to get heavier, and it always feels like there's a storm brewing just out of sight. Rachmaninoff's nihilistic outlook on life is excellently expressed through one of his most famous works.
First and foremost, it's worth noting the era in which this was composed. During the 1890’s, Russia was suffering from an extreme famine on account of extreme weather conditions and underdeveloped agricultural technologies, making life in Russia extremely difficult and depressing, something that I believe Rachmaninoff aimed to allude to in this piece. The piece is written in C-sharp minor, which effectively creates a very dark and brooding tone that is sustained throughout the entire work — something I believe that Rachmaninoff did intentionally, to reflect the reality of life in Russia.
Rachmaninoff dramatized the famine, using some rather obscure techniques to express how miserable life was in Moscow and how the Russian people began to cry out to the likes of the Tsar and other Russian nobles for help; one of these techniques being his use of dynamic extremes. The opening of the piece is in fortissimo (ff), meaning very loud, a dynamic that is really only used in climactic moments in music. However, not even four measures later, Rachmaninoff tries to be a little sneak and quickly shifts the dynamics to a quiet piano and pianissimo (p and pp, respectively). Later, as the piece reaches its climax, Rachmaninoff even uses a quadruple sforzando (sffff), meaning to begin very quietly and quickly rise to a fortissississimo (ffff), which basically means play as loud as the piano will physically allow you to. In my almost ten years of playing piano, the “Prelude in C-sharp Minor” is the only piece I have ever played that demanded such a range in terms of volume, but it certainly emphasizes the emotions the player, audience, and composer are meant to feel.
One aspect of most wordless music that I enjoy is the interpretation of the pieces. Songs can have more than one interpretation (for example, is Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” about the transition from a cold, unforgiving winter to a beautiful and blooming spring? Or is it about how he at first hates being deaf, only to then realize that he doesn’t need to hear his wife complain all the time?), and “Prelude in C-sharp Minor” is no exception. One interpretation of this piece is that Rachmaninoff is telling a story in the life of a composer. Once, when asked why he wrote the piece, he said he did it “for 40 rubles,”, because that was the maximum he could be paid in royalties for playing the piece. The life of a composer was very hard, making barely enough to live off, and having to make new music over and over again in order to survive. The use of an ABA or ternary (where a first motif is introduced, a second motif is then introduced after, and then the song ends with the same first motif, usually in a more embellished fashion) style, acts as a musical allegory for the unforgiving repetition he feels as he drudges from one royalty check to the next, and the dread he feels if his music is unsuccessful and he is left broke.
A second interpretation (one which I personally find more enjoyable to think about) is that Rachmaninoff wrote this piece based on a dream. Rachmaninoff was only nineteen when he wrote this piece, and obviously during this time in any person’s life one can have very strong yet mixed emotions: starving in 19th century Russia probably didn’t help any either. It’s already apparent based on Rachmaninoff's use of dynamics that he was in some kind of race to be Russia’s edgiest teenager, but this dream of his was absolutely off the wall. As the soft opening chordal motif of the song begins, Rachmaninoff woke up in the middle of a funeral procession. Unsure of where he is, he slowly begins to make his way towards a coffin, presumably containing the dead person being mourned. As he slowly approaches the coffin, the piece transitions into running triplets, gradually growing louder and louder, and upon reaching the coffin, triplet chords begin to descend the piano. He finally opens the coffin, and as the piece reaches its grand climax (even requiring 2 sets of staves to achieve its fullest magnitude), Rachmaninoff opens the coffin only to find himself inside. As grim as that may sound, I believe that Rachmaninoff is making a comparison between how he feels about his own life as a starving musician in a Tsar-controlled Russia, and just straight up being dead.
There is something that can be taken away from this, however. In its entirety, I believe the theme of "Prelude in C-sharp Minor" is that life can be repetitive, drab, and depressing. Living in an era where food, money, and a decent ruler were hard to come by, this piece is definitely symbolic of how hopeless he felt. Even firsthand I can say, whenever I play this piece the air in the room seems to get heavier, and it always feels like there's a storm brewing just out of sight. Rachmaninoff's nihilistic outlook on life is excellently expressed through one of his most famous works.