Piano Concerto no. 3 in d minor op. 30

It is a matter of personal taste as to whether Rachmaninoff’s second or third piano concerto is his best. But there is no doubt that “Rach 3”, with its abundance of melodic ideas, today numbers among the best loved, and at the same time most technically challenging, in the concert literature. Polish pianist Josef Hofmann, to whom the concerto, written in 1909, was dedicated, did not want to perform it in public during his lifetime, and it was Vladimir Horowitz who eventually facilitated its breakthrough on the concert stage.

As aside from the first edition and recordings, for this edition we were also able to consult the autograph full score that today is housed at the British Library. As with all of G. Henle Publishers’ Rachmaninoff editions, the fingering is by virtuoso of the century Marc-André Hamelin.