Week THREE: Birthday Week!
Hello and welcome to the WEEK THREE Main Thread for this challenge! 
Alright everyone - this is the thread where we'll all be posting our daily updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Twice a week between March 27- April 1, I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Here is this week's assignment!
Submit a Recording!
This Recording can be of yourself playing some of Rachmaninoff's music, it could be your favorite recording of him playing, or a different pianist playing his music!
We are gathering videos to put together into a collage for this weekend's Watch Party, and Birthday Celebration to honor this great Composer!
Watch Party:
April 1st at 11am Pacific time
https://app.tonebase.co/piano/live/player/pno-rachmaninoff-birthday-celebration
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A favorite recording by Yo-Yo Ma of one of my favorite Rachmaninoff song’s Zdes’ Khorosho, Op 21 No 7.
All is well here...
Look, in the distance
The river glows like a fire;
The meadows are like a colourful carpet,
And there is the whiteness of clouds.
There is nobody here.
All is quiet…
Here I am alone with God.
And the flowers, and the old pine,
And you, my dream…
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Vidhya Bashyam What an amazing piece and lovely video. Thanks so much for sharing this!
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Vidhya Bashyam thanks to you and others here for introducing his song transcriptions. They are beautiful and haunting. Apparently he wrote all his songs in Russia and never did so again after his exile to America. Perhaps something of the old Russia in him died after the Bolshevik Revolution.
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Ching Lee Goh I know you love transcriptions so hope to hear you play some of these
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Vidhya Bashyam it conveys such a deep sense of melancholy! Beautiful beyond words!
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you for sharing this lovely and poignant piece.
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you for this - soooooo beautiful!
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https://youtu.be/JBBw7G-_5S0 Posting my Prelude no 12 in G# minor, op 32. It's for me a melancholic piece but not without a silver lining. I imagine a wintry scene with a man walking down a path in deep thought with the sound of distant horse carriages with sleigh bells resonating through the woods. Towards the end of the piece, a carriage sweeps by him and disappears into the distance.
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Ching Lee Goh Great performance!
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Ching Lee Goh Beautiful playing Ching Lee! Great imagery too.
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Vidhya Bashyam thank you!
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Ching Lee Goh beautiful playing, Ching Lee!
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Ching Lee Goh This is gorgeous Ching Lee!
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thank you!
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Ching Lee Goh Extraordinary playing, Ching Lee! Both alluring and compelling, Bravo!
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Juan Carlos Olite thank you!
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This is my recording of Elegie Op.3 no1 which I made a couple of years ago on my rather old but faithful digital piano. The keys rattled and the pedals worked intermittently so I finally traded it in for a brand new one. I suppose this could be an Elegie for all those pianos that we have owned and played but are no longer with us!! https://youtu.be/lRh5SMAMsMw
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Hazel Great Hazel! You captured the mood so well.
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Hazel so beautiful thank you. This will be on my list of new pieces to learn!
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Hazel nicely played! I am inspired to learn this piece next!
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Hazel Emotional and beautiful piece! Very nice playing, Hazel!
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I think my favorite so far is the Polichinelle, op. 3 no. 4 ("A Bunny Dreams of Conquest") I posted last week, but I did find this absolutely lovely Romance and will post it for this week. It is opus 21 no. 5 and entitled "Lilacs." Listening to it, I saw a beautiful still lake with shimmering sunlight. A family of geese comes into view, swimming gracefully at first but then the little goslings begin to play: dipping down into the water, flapping their wings, chasing each other - interrupting the stillness with their springtime antics.
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Michelle R Love this Michelle. Have you heard the vocal version too? This piece and “Daisies” are the only 2 of his vocal songs he transcribed for piano too.
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Vidhya Bashyam No, I haven't heard the vocal version. I'll have to look for it Thanks!
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Vidhya Bashyam Wow - it is incredibly beautiful! I found this version:
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