i'm mostly familiar with his piano concertos, which are actually arguably the pinnacle of the western classical tradition. i'm willing to argue with a straight face that everything before beethoven was shit. but, more importantly, i'm willing to argue that it wasn't really western music, so much as it was church music - and because it was church music it was not truly western. western culture has always been about fighting against the colonizing forces of the eastern church, from the time of the celtic rebellions up until the reformation and the renaissance and beyond. the west has never been defined by christianity, but always by it's struggle against it. so, what beethoven's rebellion against the church' music theory really means is that he was the first truly western composer. if you follow this line of reasoning, western music hit it's pinnacle in the total deconstruction of church music in the first half of the twentieth century, and the greatest composers in the western tradition are not mozart and handel but debussy and rachmaninov. unfortunately, this narrative ends with the second world war. musicians perhaps understood something that other artists and historians did not: western culture was permanently destroyed by hitler & stalin, and there was truly nothing left to do but start over again.
rachmaninov's piano concertos are just pure expression. there's really nothing else like them. but, i've never heard one of his symphonies before.
if i wander to detroit next weekend, i'll no doubt end up dancing somewhere by the end of a long night. but, i won't be going at all unless i can convince myself that this symphony is worth attending.
what do you think? does this live up to the expectations one would have, being solely familiar with the piano work? or does it lose itself in the sterility of a composer writing for instruments he does not play?