Piano Concerto no. 2 in C minor, op. 18

Rachmaninoff wrote his Second Piano Concerto after a period of deep depression following the disastrous première of his First Symphony. He dedicated the concerto to Dr Nikolai Dahl, who helped him recover the desire to compose. The work restored Rachmaninoff’s public standing and became one of the most widely loved piano concertos in the world. Its history is inseparable from renewal: music appearing at the moment when creative confidence returned. He worked on the score between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901, and played the first performance himself in Moscow on 9 November 1901, conducted by his cousin Alexander Siloti.