Happy Birthday (belated) to Rachmaninoff!

We wanted to share write this post earlier on his birthday, but it did slip from our minds! April 1st was Rachmaninoff’s birthday! (not kidding! haha)

This was only the second piece that Scott wrote for the composers’ birthday series. (The first was Chopin’s birthday!) This home video recording was also one of the first that we made after the move….ah so many memories!

A couple of weeks before April 1st, Scott mentioned that Rachmaninoff’s birthday was coming up, and he wanted to write another birthday piece in celebration of Rachmaninoff’s birthday, but he wasn’t sure what to do yet. Our conversations over meals are often about what pieces to arrange, how to film, and when to be ready for recording sessions…haha! I (Clare) can’t remember in details what we talked about then, but I do remember a couple of days after that, Scott came to me with “glowing eyes” and said “I know what I’m going to do with Rachmaninoff’s birthday!”

From that moment, he prohibited me from entering his office or listening to samples of it, because he wanted it to be a surprise! The most information he gave me was that he is basing it off all three movements of Rachmaninoff’s famous Piano Concerto No. 2! And just to bug him, from time to time, I would walk in his office when he was working on his arrangement and pretended to read the screen, and he would push me out of his office! :P

I think it was about two days later when I woke up in the morning, he came and said “I think I finished!” So I was finally welcomed to his office to sit and listen to his new arrangement! I just bursted out in laughs when the first section started! (You have to listen to it, I don’t want to give the surprise away! haha) Throughout the piece, I thought it was just so brilliantly done, and we were excited to try it out and record it!

We were very happy to finally be able to play it live in a concert a few days ago after a whole year!

So here it is again, Happy Birthday, Rachmaninoff!