Rachmaninoff, Moment Musical Op. 16, No. 6 - Anastasia Huppmann
Channel: Anastasia Huppmann
Date: 2022-11-11

Rachmaninoff Moment No 6 by Anastasia Huppmann

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In an interview in 1941, Rachmaninoff said, "What I try to do, when writing Rachmaninoff Moment No 6 down my music, is to make it say simply and directly that which is in my heart when I am composing." Even though Moments musicaux were written because he was short of money, the pieces summarize his knowledge of piano composition up to that point. Andantino opens the set with a long, reflective melody that develops into a rapid climax. The second piece, Allegretto, is the first of the few in the set that reveal his mastery of piano technique. Andante cantabile is a contrast to its two surrounding pieces, explicitly named "funeral march" and "lament." Presto draws inspiration from several sources, including the Preludes of Frédéric Chopin, to synthesize an explosion of melodic intensity. The fifth, Adagio sostenuto is a respite in barcarolle form, before the finale Maestoso, which closes the set in a thick three-part texture. 

Background of Rachmaninoff Moment No 6
By the fall of 1896, 23-year old Rachmaninoff's financial status was precarious, not helped by his being robbed of money on an earlier train trip. Pressed for time, both financially and by those expecting a symphony, he "rushed into production." On December 7, he wrote to Aleksandr Zatayevich, a Russian composer he had met before he had composed the work, saying, "I hurry in order to get money I need by a certain date ... This perpetual financial pressure is, on the one hand, quite beneficial ... by the 20th of this month I have to write six piano pieces." Rachmaninoff completed all six during October and December 1896, and dedicated all to Zatayevich. Despite the hasty circumstances, the work evidences his early virtuosity, and sets an example for the quality of his future works.

Six moments musicaux is a sophisticated work that is of longer duration, thicker textures, and greater virtuosic demands on the performer than any of Rachmaninoff's previous solo piano works. It is similar to Alexander Scriabin's momentous Étude in D♯ minor (Op. 8, No. 12)—in both compositions, detail is more functional than ornamentative in their musical argument. It is here, rather than in Morceaux de fantaisie (Op. 3, 1892) or Morceaux de salon (Op. 10, 1894), that Rachmaninoff places specific qualities of his own playing into his music. There is passionate lyricism in numbers three and Rachmaninoff Moment No 6, but the others require a pianist with virtuoso technique and musical perception. These were composed during the middle of Rachmaninoff's career, and created a foundation of inner voices that he would elaborate on in his Preludes (Op. 23) and Études-Tableaux (Op. 33). Although he usually gave the première of his own piano works, he was not the first to perform these, and the date of the first public performance has not yet been determined.

6. Maestoso, C major (Rachmaninoff Moment No 6)

The last piece in the set is a quintessential nineteenth-century work, and has been described as an "apotheosis or completion of struggle." It appears to be inspired by the texture in the Präludium from Schumann's Bunte Blätter. The piece was once summarized as:

Rachmaninoff Moment No 6

The final Rachmaninoff Moment No 6 piece or movement of a cycle that is virtuosic and brilliant, employing the entire range of dynamics and sonorities available to the piano, bringing a set of pieces to a glorious conclusion.

This "stormy, agitated" (Rachmaninoff Moment No 6) work contains a "vehemently triple-dotted main theme and only some brief midsection hazy sunshine [that lightens] the storm before fortississimo thunders return and finally dominate." Despite the dark imagery presented to describe the piece, the work is in C major, and the end result is more light-hearted than dark, but not as triumphal as the Maestoso would make it sound.

Like the second and fourth pieces, Rachmaninoff Moment No 6 is written in the form of an étude, with a repetitive but technically challenging chordal melody that is doubled in both hands.

Rachmaninoff Moment No 6 is one of the most difficult pieces in the set. Stamina and strength are required to sustain a full resonant sound, while the continuous thirty-second figure can be tiring for the pianist. Consistent tempo from Rachmaninoff Moment No 6 is a problem for this piece, due to the melody being interspersed with two other elements. Additionally, the dynamics, mostly "loud" and "very loud," indicate that an accurate vision of relative volume is necessary. Maintaining this accuracy while managing every other element of the piece and successfully presenting a musically solid performance continues to be the ultimate challenge of all.