Certainly, the Variations date from a time when the composer was preoccupied with thinning out, if not excising, his music (see the hatchet taken to the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Second Piano Sonata). La Folie was not actually composed by Corelli, yet the attribution has persisted. Rachmaninov sets thirteen variations that precede an extended cadenza. This leads to the emotional heart of the work in the flattened tonic major key (Db). The final variations are then wild and sweep towards a ‘light at the end of the tunnel [which] allows the right hand to soar into a beautiful melody over several octaves [offering] the briefest ray of hope’ at the last (Robert Matthew-Walker). This adaptation of Rachmaninov’s music to the organistic environment is theculmination of my having played the work as a pianist for a number of years. The music’s comparative ‘leanness’ in textural terms and, once again, its largely rhythmic progress suggest an aptness for re-realization here.

from notes by Jeremy Filsell © 2014