Trifonov and Nelsons reveal Rachmaninov’s voice on Tanglewood opening night

In 2023 – as the musical world celebrated the 150th anniversary of Sergei Rachmaninov’s birth – Andris Nelsons and Daniil Trifonov opened the Tanglewood Festival with Prokofiev’s spiky and virtuosic Third Piano Concerto. In what felt like a retroactive homage, they returned on Saturday to open this year’s festival with Rachmaninov’s own Third Piano Concerto, followed by the composer’s ever-popular Symphonic Dances.

Trifonov’s performance confirmed once again why he is among the most persuasive and inwardly intense Rachmaninov interpreters of his generation. From the noble opening theme to the thunderous finale, he shaped the work with a sense of inevitability that never lost its suppleness. He chose the longer, more formidable cadenza in the first movement and played it not merely as a virtuosic showcase, but as a fulcrum of tension and structure – its climactic ascent emerging as both an architectural and emotional high point. The pianist and orchestra began slightly on parallel paths, but the dialogue quickly found its footing. Trifonov’s exchanges with solo woodwinds and brass carried a chamber-like intimacy – moments of reflection woven through the storm. In the Intermezzo, his phrasing had a lean, singing quality, refusing to indulge in heaviness even in the darkest corners. The finale had dazzling clarity and unrelenting momentum, the octaves cutting through the orchestral swell without losing tonal beauty.

Trifonov responded to the unrelenting ovations with the Adagio from Mikhail Pletnev’s wondrous paraphrase of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty – a solo piano reimagining that distills orchestral ballet into poetic, weightless, occasionally eerie lines. As an encore, it was a subtle reminder of how deeply Rachmaninov’s voice is rooted in Tchaikovsky’s lyricism and pianistic grace.

Echoes of Tchaikovsky linger throughout Rachmaninov’s output and remain audible even in the late Symphonic Dances – especially in the second movement waltz’s balletic grace, the poised exchanges between woodwinds and strings, and the flair with which lyricism is introduced and withdrawn. These reminiscences, along with recurring sonorities – tolling bells, the ever-present Dies irae – and self-quotations from the First Symphony and All-Night Vigil, were vividly brought to the fore in Nelsons’ interpretation.

At the same time, Nelsons and the BSO emphasised the work’s more modern idiom: rhythmic instability, brittle harmonic turns and fragmented gestures that disrupt the musical flow. The score’s refined stylisation and gleaming orchestral palette recall Ravel, while its abrupt juxtapositions, pulsing ritualism and undercurrent of violence suggest Stravinsky. Rather than smoothing over contrasts, Nelsons leaned into volatility, allowing the music’s swerves between grandeur and ghostliness, ceremony and collapse to register with expressive force.

Like Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, a close contemporary score also written in exile in the United States, Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances is a vehicle for showcasing orchestral virtuosity and individual instrumental contributions. The saxophone solo emerged with smoky lyricism. The strings, especially in the second movement’s off-kilter waltz, shaped their phrases with both elegance and unease. Equally compelling were the solo turns from the oboe and clarinet, alternating mournful chant and playful echo, and the piano, whose bright interjections were cleanly articulated without losing their percussive weight. The brass brought bite and resonance throughout, from the grim chorale-like statements in the opening movement to the blazing, hard-edged affirmations of the finale.

Overall, this was an evening that not only featured Trifonov's outstanding pianism, but also an orchestra that rose to the interpretive challenges of both early and late Rachmaninov – music that continues to cast its spell through a fusion of emotional depth and technical brilliance.