The Rachmaninoff Dilemma

In my opinion, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1945) is one of the greatest ever composers.  I would even apply the term composer to include anyone who writes music, not just to those who write classical music.  Rachmaninoff is an interesting study in artistic freedom because unlike someone such as Mozart, we have recordings of Rachmaninoff actually playing his own works.  He was a piano player and he had hands which enabled him to incorporate chords which might cause cramps in the hands of piano players with smaller hands.  I think for me, Rachmaninoff’s music has elicited more “You’re kidding me right” responses than when I tried to play anyone else’s music. 

But because we have recordings of Rachmaninoff playing his own music, and conducting his own symphonies etc., the piano players and conductors of today have an interesting decision to make whenever performing any of his works.  The decision is whether to play the music exactly as Rachmaninoff intended it to be played, or whether to apply one’s own interpretation to it.

Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# Minor, one of his most famous works and without a doubt the most famous of his solo piano works, is a case in point.  The piece has three sections.  You have the main theme, then what we call a bridge today, followed by a repetition of the main theme but in a grander fashion.  When Rachmaninoff played this peace, he played the third section very loud and very fast.  My problem is simple.  I dislike Rachmaninoff’s interpretation of that section.  I prefer a slower and slightly louder third section.  This has always been jarring for me because who am I to disagree with, not only the composer of the piece, but with a man whose musical talents far exceed mine.  How far?  I can’t even think of a metaphor to describe the gap between us.  And yet, what can I say, I feel my interpretation sounds better than the original.

I take comfort in knowing that other far more gifted pianists agree.  They too play that third section in a different manner than Rachmaninoff did.  And it’s not like we only have one obscure recording of the great man’s performance of this piece.  It was his most requested piece.  In fact, people asked him to play it so much he grew tired of playing it.  He even went so far as to proclaim he preferred the boogie woogie version of the prelude to his original. 

I don’t think Rachmaninoff actually did prefer the boogie version to his own, but at the time he was sick and tired of having to play the prelude all the time.  And I think he acknowledged the complement of someone reinterpreting a classical work into a modern form.  But he never actually wrote a boogie woogie of any kind so who knows what he really thought of the form.

I have always wished I could ask Rachmaninoff whether he approved of people interpreting his masterpiece in a different way to himself.  In the end, I do not know what he would have said or thought. 

When it comes to art, we generally allow people to reinterpret original works into a modern context.  That’s why Hollywood remakes War of the Worlds every so often and that is why we have a seemingly infinite number of Superman and Batman remakes.  Remakes of Total Recall and The Beverley Hillbillies not to mention The Brady Bunch reveal that we don’t wait very long before we reinterpret works. 

When Eric Carman released All By Myself and Never Gonna Fall In Love Again in the 1970’s, any howls of protest were muted, if there were any at all.  These two songs were based on two of Rachmaninoff’s works, but most people considered the Carmen songs different from the originals.  He took two themes from Rachmaninoff and turned them into two very popular songs which only incorporated the themes.  Eric Carman gave full credit to the composer who inspired him. 

But to play a Rachmaninoff song note for note, something which Carman did not do, and to disagree with the master on how those notes should sound is quite another matter.  What does a piano player do?  Would Rachmaninoff be displeased with my interpretation of his prelude?  Maybe.

Society faces this very same dilemma in a number of areas, even if it does not realize this.  Take the United States of America’s two most revered documents:  The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  When Thomas Jefferson wrote so eloquently that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” he meant that only white men were created equal and had these rights from the Creator.  Black people were not equal and therefore did not have the unalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner and quite comfortable as such.

Likewise in 1787 when the United States Constitution was ratified, the noble purpose to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity” only applied to white people.  Black people were not entitled to the same benefits.  This is why for the purposes of voting, as a compromise to ensure smaller states had a greater say in the governance of the country, black people were considered 3/5 of a person.  That the United States Constitution was in force for 78 years before slavery was abolished is a lasting monument to the original intent of the founders.

Since that time the United States has adopted various amendments which have had the effect of freeing slaves and extending the franchise to all citizens.  Had subsequent generations felt we must adhere not only to the words of the Constitution but to the original intent of the Constitution, things would be very different from what they are today.

When it comes to religion, however, it is even more difficult to branch out on your own and interpret.  If Rachmaninoff were the Lord Almighty, many would strenuously forbid anyone to depart in any way from the way he originally played his own works.  Likewise these same people would be slave owners today.  In both instances, we clearly understand what was originally meant and we consciously depart from that intent, knowing full well what we are doing.

Religion faces this question today.  Is it permissible to depart from the clear intent of those works which are considered scripture?  Some say yes, others say no.  Still others say no, but their actions prove otherwise.  Let us take the Bible as an example.  The Bible clearly condemns homosexuality.  Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.  In fact, Paul is so intent on condemning homosexuality that if you read his works in the original Greek, he goes out of his way to say that whether a man sticks it in someone, or has it stuck into him, both are wrong – just in case we thought one is OK while the other is not. 

Some theologians have said that Christ’s call to love one another overrides anything Paul says.  The problem is for many Christians, the Bible as we have it today, is supposed to be the Word of God.  If Christians hold that the words of Christ are the perfect word of God, while the words of Paul are an imperfect rendition of God’s word, then Christians render the Bible meaningless as scripture.  For if parts of the Bible are imperfect, why should we care what it says?  If the Bible is the word of God, it must be perfect.  Otherwise, God’s revelation is imperfect and therefore not fully reliable.

Theologians constantly wrestle with this problem.  Clearly, the humans who wrote the Bible are imperfect thus it is their intervention which distorts the word of God.  This may work for ambiguous passages, or passages which can be read in a number of ways.  But there are some things which are so clear, it is black and white.  Either we follow what it says, or we abandon it completely.  The Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality is one such example.  Even if transmission by human means  has distorted the text somewhat, the intent is crystal clear and beyond question.

This is the Rachmaninoff Dilemma for theologians and believers.  This is the central question which lies behind fundamentalism such as Islamic State, and more moderate viewpoints.  What do we do with the clear intent of a sacred text?

When it comes to Prelude in C# Minor I simply don’t like what Rachmaninoff did with the third section.  I acknowledge his greatness.  I acknowledge his vast superiority to myself, but I just don’t like the way he played that prelude.  I can’t help it.  The same holds true with the original intent of the Constitution.  I do not like the original intent.  I think it is wrong and I am glad amendments have come along to fix those problems.  But dare I challenge God?  Is it right for me, a believer, to say “You know God, I just don’t like what you said.  I don’t agree with you.” 

Of course, there are many Christians who are quite comfortable with the possibility of displeasing Rachmaninoff.  Still others, who are agnostic or atheists ask what the big deal is.  If, for example, you have contempt for Rachmaninoff why should you care whether someone plays the prelude in a different way to the way the composer played it.  But for many Christians, the Rachmaninoff Dilemma is a very real one.  This is true for Muslims, Jews, and anyone who sincerely wishes to please God.  As a believer, I take comfort in the following passage found in Mark 7:24-30.

 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.  Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”  So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

In this passage, Jesus clearly says something completely outrageous.  If he said something like this to us today, we would tell him what he could do with himself.  How dare he be so rude.  How can the supposed Son of God classify some human beings as children, and others as dogs?  I personally give Christ the benefit of the doubt here in that I believe he was trying to teach his disciples a lesson knowing what this woman would do.  But that is just my opinion.  It is the lesson here that is important.

And it is the lesson that 99% of Bible students miss.  They would tell you that all people (we must be politically correct) are created equal and the notion some are dogs was an unworthy belief held by many Jews of the time.  Perhaps so.  But that is not the real lesson of this story.  The real lesson is this.  When God says something completely outrageous, it is perfectly acceptable to challenge God.  The woman’s answer here is clever in that she relies on wit rather than outraged protest.  OK, she says, even if I am a dog, I deserve crumbs and if that heals my daughter than I’ll be a dog.  She put her daughter first and was willing to accept Christ’s verbal slap-in-the-face.  Christ, in effect, says:  “Yeah you got me there lady.  OK, I’ll do what you want because I really don’t have an argument against your logic.”  This story gives me, a believer, hope because I learn from it that it is OK to disagree and to see things in a different way from the way God supposedly sees things.  And sometimes, God says, “Yeah, you got me there.”  That doesn’t mean I will always be right.  Far from it.  But at least I know that I can think, and ask and not necessarily except what is clearly meant in scripture – whatever that is.