Rachmaninoff's Elegie Op. 3 (opening)
A brief history of this work:
This was one of the first works Rachmaninoff had performed in his public debut as a concert pianist in 1862, soon after graduating from the Moscow Conservatory. For this concert, he was earned a total of 50 rubles, or about 65 cents in today's money!
Elegie is of a funereal character and very much an extension of Chopin's style of piano writing, with an arpeggiated bass and bel canto treble line. However, it consistently makes wider use of the keyboard in the bass register and is darker in character, while exploring a unique harmonic relationship based on the tritone between E-flat7 and A7 in the climax.
