a dose of music: a classical injection - part 6

I have to first thank everyone who has been reading as today breaks 500 hits to my blog, so thanks. My next installment for listening is going to have to be some Rachmaninoff. I love Rachmaninoff because I think his music is absolutely beautiful, so I'd like to suggest Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, usually referred to as Rach 3; an extremely difficult concerto for pianists...often known as the hardest...or so I've been told by my pianist friends. Its about forty minutes long, and is in the typical three movement concerto form. Its not only extremely beautiful but quite exciting. Rachmaninoff was a "romantic" period composer, and his music, in my opinion, is the epitome of the style. As I expressed in my previous post about "new music," Rachmaninoff was obviously an accomplished musician himself as he wrote the piece not only to show his talents as a composer, but as a pianist, as he himself was the first to perform it. (He supposedly practiced the part on a silent keyboard on the boat over to America for the first performance as there had been no time to practice in Russia before leaving!)