Chapter Thirteen Of Keeping Score In America: Sergei Rachmaninoff
By Michael Moriarty
web posted September 16, 2013
 "The God of my idolatry!" |
Please bump up this Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvuitFzDxDg
Those low notes, at the very beginning, in the contrabass? They are the depth of Sergei Rachmaninoff's courage!
Please listen to this first movement of the Second Symphony until it is completed. You can, of course, read this, as you listen!
We really don't need the other three movements of this symphony. Well, I personally don't think so. Then again, I am perhaps inordinately in love with this movement.
Why?
This first movement tells us everything there is to know about the genius of Sergei Rachmaninoff.
I was in the bassinet when I first heard it! Could not even crawl yet and I heard these sounds! They engulfed me as "my master's voice" and, from then on, I was virtually owned by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Now, 72 years later, and a devout believer in God, I am convinced that The Almighty wrote this movement. Rachmaninoff, like all geniuses of any kind, was unmistakably the perfect messenger.
There is a clear and unmistakable drama to this movement which I will describe and discuss. Presently I am sharing with you, perhaps, one of the oldest secrets of my entire life!
My sister and I were born into what I can only describe as one of those horridly "respectable", domestic nightmares. Delivered to a set of parents who were only destined for a World War III version of divorce.
A World War III version means there were no "good guys" on either side.
Nothing so prepared me for those darkening days as this first movement of the Second Symphony.
Nothing so sustains me these days as listening to the glories of my truest and most soulful Christening: listening to the greatest works of Sergei Rachmaninoff!!
I have already written a tribute to Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto as performed by the divinely gifted, Olga Kern.
More recently, however, I've been listening to the concerto I grew up on, the companion to Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony, the Second Piano Concerto by Sergei Rachmaninoff, as performed by Sviatoslav Richter.
Richter has now become my favorite classical pianist of all time.
I regret that he proved to be a loyal Soviet all of his life but, oh, well, that's all due to the profoundly romantic appeal of the Russian Revolution's initial sales pitch.
Communist genius… and genius of any other kind… can never be disputed. The present Communist success of simultaneously ruling the three greatest capitals of the world: Moscow, Beijing and Washington?!?!
Yes, Obama is an admitted Marxist and, most certainly by now, despite this grossly over-acted and overly-scripted charade of an argument with Neo-Soviet Russia's Vladimir Putin, a possibly card-carrying member of the International Communist Party.
In the midst of all this sword-rattling talk and the growing worries over a possible World War III, I find the first movement of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony profoundly comforting.
How so?
If the Almighty will forgive my presumption, I believe that such symphonic music is God talking.
And what is He saying with the Rachmaninoff First Movement of the Second Symphony?!
God is broken-hearted, of course.
Why? A Red Lion's share of His children, the International Communist Party not only doesn't love him! It won't even recognize God's existence. Many are utterly lost and traipsing down paths that belong to the most errant of God's angels, his most gifted of winged miracle-workers, Lucifer.
That is why the melancholy within this creation's musical longing is so powerful. For myself at any rate, we hear God mourning the loss of His children.
However, all is not lost. God's lost loves return and He gathers them to Him protectively and defends them from their mortal enemies!
Yes, the many disciples of the Devil, not the least of which, of course, are the atheistic children of Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and now this entire charade called THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS. The organization that is, even now, throwing a Red Islamic, Communist/Muslim alliance against what's left of the Free World in the Middle East.
Tragically that Free World does not include the proven bad-faith of President Barack Obama.
The games he's playing only further obscure Iran's nuclear threat to the entire human race.
Where did the music in this article go? Where it has always belonged: as a reminder of God's divine Presence on Earth! Don't despair for God is here.
If you don't believe me, just listen to the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony one more time… or whenever you feel despair coming on.
As we all know, there is much in America these days to despair over. 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty.