The Glory of Russian Masterworks – Lecture 3: From Mussorgsky to Rachmaninoff and Scriabin

Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev: Russia has provided us with some of the most exciting and original music in the repertoire today. Vibrant colors, explosive energy, and passionate emotional drive characterize the works of these composers. Yet this tradition seemed to spring from nowhere barely 150 years ago, expanding meteorically in breadth and national confidence over an amazingly short period. As she explores the riches of Russian concert works, popular speaker and concert pianist Rachel Franklin combines lecture and piano demonstrations to also trace the turbulent historical movements that acted both as backdrop and engine for this fascinating musical evolution.

British-born Franklin has been a featured speaker for organizations including the Library of Congress and heard on NPR, exploring intersections among classical and jazz music, film scores, and the fine arts.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Modeste Mussorgsky was rough-hewn, barely trained, and obsessed with the rhythms of the Russian language, while Sergey Rachmaninoff was supremely polished and an international concert pianist of titanic genius. Yet both formed their styles directly from ancient Russian traditions. Franklin showcases Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos. Meanwhile, the highly eccentric Scriabin was creating his own language colored by synaesthesia and powered by his bizarre mystic beliefs, as exemplified by his tone poem Prometheus: Poem of Fire.