Rachmaninoff’s compositions require nimble fingers, strength and endurance. A cross-section of his piano work will be offered by one of the world’s most outstanding female pianists of her generation. Olga Kern won the worldwide favor of audiences and experts not only with her exceptional technique.

Sergei Rachmaninov
Three Etudes from Études tableaux Op. 33 and Études tableaux Op. 39

Sergei Rachmaninov
Five Preludes from Five Fantastic Pieces Op. 3, Ten Preludes for Piano Op. 23 and Thirteen Preludes for Piano Op. 32

Sergei Rachmaninov
Sonata for Piano No. 2 in B minor, Op. 36 (second edition 1931)

Sergei Rachmaninov
Presto in E minor No. 4 from Six Musical Moments, Op. 16

Sergei Rachmaninov
Seven Salon Pieces for Piano, Op. 10, No. 3 Barcarolle

Sergei Rachmaninov
Five Fantastic Pieces for Piano, Op. 3, No. 4 Pulcinella

Sergei Rachmaninov
Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42

Sergei Rachmaninov
Three Transcriptions (Mussorgsky, Rachmaninov, Kreisler)

Sergei Rachmaninov
Polka de W. R.

Olga Kern – piano

This recital by Olga Kern, one of the world’s most outstanding pianists of her generation, will offer a cross-section of the piano works of Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose birth in 2023 marks one hundred and fifty years. The Russian-born pianist has lived for many years in the USA, where she teaches at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music in New York. Her exceptional technique and passion for music have won her the favor of audiences and professionals around the world.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s monumental piano works have been created in parallel with his other compositional activities as well as his successful international career as a piano virtuoso. The great majority of his piano works were written in Russia, before his emigration to the USA in 1917. From the early piano compositions of the last decade of the 19th century to the Second Piano Sonata or the mature cycles of Preludes and Etudes-Pictures, the composer perfected his late Romantic piano style, which is distinguished by its powerful gestures and melancholic lyricism. Rachmaninoff’s music demands strength, stamina and finger dexterity from its performers. Composing had to gradually give way to Rachmaninov’s busy concert schedule. By the early 1930s, he had produced only Variations on a Theme of Corelli and virtuoso transcriptions of works by well-known composers from Bach to Kreisler.