THE DEVIL’S IN THE FINGERS: TRIFONOV TAKES
FLIGHT AT A THUNDEROUS TANGLEWOOD OPENING

Conductor Andris Nelson led the Boston Symphony Orchestra at last night’s opening of its 2025 Tanglewood concerts season with an all-Rachmaninoff program. The piano soloist was Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov), who Stage and Cinema hailed as the “Big Thing of the piano world” with a “combination of possessed frenzy and ardent lovemaking.” In tackling Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto, Trifonov takes on the ultimate challenge for a pianist, 45 minutes of demanding virtuosity. He goes where few pianists dare to tread, following in the footsteps of a handful of renowned virtuosos such as Vladimir Horowitz and Van Cliburn as well as Rachmaninoff himself.

Andris Nelsons conducts Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances

I was lucky enough to have a seat that afforded me a clear view of Trifonov’s hands as he spun out a nearly endless stream of music. The precision of his execution and the deftness of his touch at speeds that sometimes made his hands a blur were thrilling to watch; his body arced and bent to the music and at times he bounced off his seat, higher and higher until I had the brief sensation that he might take flight, anchored only through the contact of his fingers extracting music from the keys of the piano like the roots of a tree extracting nourishment from the soil even as its trunk and branches whip about wildly in a storm.

If that sounds like a preposterous metaphor it’s because watching Trifonov—hearing Trifonov—is a preposterous experience in that it seems “contrary to nature, reason, or common sense” to draw on the dictionary definition of preposterous. The deluge of sound and the uninterrupted outpouring of emotion, as well as the contortions of his body summon the term demonic and a recollection of the rumors that 19^th-century violin virtuoso Paganini made a pact with the devil to achieve his brilliant technique.

Andris Nelsons conducts the BSO with soloist Daniil Trifonov

Not that I’m accusing Trifonov of any such deal-making, but it’s hard, hearing and watching such a performance, not to wonder about the cost—physically, psychically, personally—of such an achievement. Indeed, at the culmination of the Third Concerto, Trifonov was visibly spent, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. But the extraordinary energy of his effort had filled the concert shed, and the audience was shouting and on its feet. With the same intensity, he offered for the encore Pletnev’s adaptation of the tender but towering, technically challenging, Adagio from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty.

Applause for Daniil Trifonov and Andris Nelsons

Following the intermission, we saw another side of Rachmaninoff. Piano Concerto No. 3 was written in 1909 while Rachmaninoff still lived in Russia; the Symphonic Dances, Rachmaninoff’s last major work, was composed in 1940, near the end of his life and after he had lived in the United States for more than twenty years.

Andris Nelsons conducts the BSO in their first Tanglewood program

The piano, so central to the Third Concerto, has literally been pushed to the side now, and the talented Mr. Trifonov has exited the stage. The focus now moves to the violins, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. To my ear, we are no longer in the Romantic era with the Symphonic Dances, which bears evidence of numerous twentieth-century influences: Mahler and Gershwin, for example. The minor-key waltz in the second movement evokes Weimar rather than Vienna; the crescendos of the third movement that explode and then melt into plaintive melodies hint at the blues, but only for a moment before the movement takes on a frantic pace that is quite different from the torrent of melody that characterized the Third Concerto. The industrial sounds and rhythms of this last movement of Symphonic Dances bring to mind the sounds and rhythms of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue to convey the rush—and perhaps even the delight—of Rachmaninoff’s adopted home of New York City.

This interpretation of mine doesn’t match the one provided in the BSO program. According to commentator Harlow Robinson, the third movement is dominated by religious references—specifically to the Dies Irae motif and an Orthodox liturgical chant. My ears are not trained to detect these influences, but what Robinson and I seem to have in common is the sense the Symphonic Dances end with an expression of optimism that despite the rise of fascism and the world’s plunge into war in the early 1940s, there was reason for hope and for gratitude, a perspective that still has value today.

photos by Hilary Scott

All-Rachmaninoff Program with Daniil Trifonov
opening night at Tanglewood, July 5, 2025
Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood in Lenox/Stockbridge, MA
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Daniil Trifonov, piano