Variation n.18 from Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini Op.43 (Rachmaninoff) - “Who’s the best?”

Pianists: 0:01 Nikolaj Lugansky 2:51 Arthur Rubinstein 5:39 Anna Fedorova 8:18 Daniil Trifonov 11:12 Sergei Rachmaninoff 13:48 Valentina Lisitsa Story: Composed in the villa that Rachmaninov owned in Lucerne, Switzerland, in the summer of 1934, the Rhapsody was premiered, with great success, on November 7 of the same year at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, with the author himself as soloist and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The rhapsody follows the same development as the Capriccio op. 1, no. 24 by Niccolò Paganini, with an initial theme on which variations are composed. The Rhapsody is structured in 24 variations. Although they follow one another without interruption, the composition can be divided into three macro-sequences which correspond to the three movements of a concert: the first part includes variations 1-11, the second (slower) goes from 12 to 18, while the remaining variations form the finale. The slow, melodic Andante cantabile (variation 18) is by far the best known section of the work. In it the composer uses the same theme as in the others, however creating a specular inversion of the melodic trend.