Analyzing Rachmaninoff's Song 'All By Myself'

Courtney Carrico and Melody Bahmanzad

Appreciation of Music

Doctor Sheldon

1 October 2014

Music 100 - Essay No. 2 The song originally discusses in our first essay was “All by Myself,” initially written by Eric Carmen, covered by Celine Dion. In further research, we have discovered that Carmen's song was based on Russian pianist and songwriter Sergei Vassilievich Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Sergei Rachmaninoff was born on April 1st, 1873 and died on March 28th, 1943. Rachmaninoff was born in the Romanticist Era, therefore his pieces of music were written with the traits of that era. As a boy, he grew up wealthy due to his aristocratic parents. His parents hired Anna Ornatskaya to teach young Rachmaninoff piano. Ornatskaya educated

Eventually Sergei Rachmaninoff decided to become a composer and began creating many compositions. Thus, his Piano Concertos were brought into existence. A concerto is “a musical composition for a solo instrument or instruments accompanied by an orchestra, especially one conceived on a relatively large scale.” (Webster's Dictionary 2010) Specifically, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 was written in the form of a three-movement concerto. The piece varied between major and minor in each movement. Some of the vital instruments used in this brilliant piece are the piano, strings, flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpets, trombones, timpani, and much more. The part of the piece that was taken by Eric Carmen was the them from the second movement in the concerto. Describing the second movement of the musical composition, it begins with the strings ascending and making the music have a sort of lifting feel. Then the piano gently enters with an “apreggiated figure” and the strings join back in and the piano and strings work together to produce the main theme of the concerto. The music has a slight crescendo and then starts to fade away. Finally, the solo piano finishes the second

2. The most likely answer to that would be that he was an admirer of Rachmaninoff and wished to base a song off of his composition. Maybe he felt that the classical piece mixed with a modern style brought more dynamics into the song and made it more interesting. It could also be that if Rachmaninoff's piece was famous or well known, then it would provide familiarity to the new song making it more likeable, and therefore more successful, to his audience. Whatever the case may be, many people have enjoyed Carmen's and Rachmaninoff's works and hopefully will continue to for years to