An Encounter with Rachmaninoff
A couple weeks ago, I watched the 1945 movie Brief Encounter directed by David Lean. The film follows two strangers, both married with families, who happen to meet at a railway station. Over the course of several weeks, they continue to meet for one afternoon a week, their bond getting stronger and stronger.
In the opening credits, you’ll be informed that the music for the film is Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. This naturally indicated to me that the piano concerto would be the main soundtrack of the movie. But despite my many years of piano education, this particular title by Rachmaninoff held no significance to me. I could not easily place it by the title alone. I thought perhaps I might recognize the music as it played throughout the movie.
And of course, in a particularly desperate and romantic scene of the movie, I heard the concerto loud and clear in the background. I did recognize it. But I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. It was familiar, and I felt like I knew it from somewhere specific. I sort of hummed along to see if my brain would naturally fill in the rest of the musical phrase.
The tune continued to burrow through my mind until, similar to Cher Horowitz in the movie Clueless, I had an epiphany. I bring up Clueless because there is a scene where after Cher discovers that her protégé Tai is in love with Cher’s stepbrother (we ignore that part), Cher goes out shopping. She is wandering the city, miserable, trying to make sense of her feelings, and why shopping doesn’t seem to help make her feel better. She walks in front of the Electric Fountain in Beverly Hills and right as the water show starts, she has the profound realization that she is in fact in love with Josh. The song that is playing in the background is All by Myself, originally by Eric Carmen, eventually covered by Celine Dion, and in this scene in the movie is sung by Jewel.
It then became clear to me. The musical theme in Brief Encounter reminded me of All by Myself. Of course, it was not actually All by Myself, because that song came out in 1975. I let this sit with me as the movie continued on. I debated whether I was noticing a similar chord progression, a happenstance of similar notes descending that defined both melodies. I thought it would be odd for a 70s soft rock song to sample Rachmaninoff.
I did not immediately pull out my phone to find the answers. I was enraptured in the movie itself and despite my brain now belting out “All by Myself” during every quiet and intimate scene between these two unrealized lovers. I tried not to let the music distract me.
Of course, after the movie I started on what I assumed would be a deep dive. Would I find the answers I was looking for? Had others noticed this similar theme?
Well, as it turns out, the answer was actually quite simple. I pulled up the Wikipedia for All by Myself and within the first paragraph, “The verse is based on the second movement (Adagio sostenuto) of Sergei Rachmaninoff's c. 1900–1901 Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18.”
I was not just hearing a similar chord progression or happenstance of notes. The soft rock 70s ballad actually sampled Rachmaninoff.
All by Myself features a lengthy piano solo and Eric Carmen was looking for a song to fit it into. After hearing the Piano Concerto No. 2, he decided to write the verses around some of the themes of the concerto. At the time Carmen wrote the song, Rachmaninoff’s music was in the public domain in the United States, but it still had a copyright outside of the US. So, Carmen had to strike a deal with the Rachmaninoff estate, after the song’s release.
I find it quite amusing how a piece of music can take on new life and meaning with each reinterpretation. Apparently, the concerto itself gained quite a lot of popularity during its original release by Rachmaninoff. And of course, it gained new or revived recognition with its prominent feature in Brief Encounter. And now, my only exposure to Piano Concerto No. 2 is through a 1975 rock ballad, one that I probably first heard as a cover by Jewel in the movie Clueless.
The piece has been so translated, embedded with meaning, reinterpreted, and recontextualized, that now, I watch a movie from 1945 wondering if these two strangers will ever become lovers, and I can only hear All by Myself playing in the background—a song that will not have been written for another 30 years.
Are there other songs like this? Ones that have traveled through time, gaining newer and newer popularity while being stripped of their previous context. I’m sure there are plenty.
And what’s next for Rachmaninoff? Does Piano Concerto No. 2 end with All by Myself? Has it reached its peak of recognition? Or who will sample All by Myself, strip that song of it’s original context, and continue the chain?
I encourage you to listen to both songs side by side. I also encourage you to watch Brief Encounter—absolutely gut-wrenching. Hopefully now with this warning, you won’t be caught off guard when you start to anticipate Celine Dion to start singing in the soundtrack.