1. 23 To my dismay, a friend recently told me he prefers the Rachmaninoff piano concertos to those of Mozart because Rachmaninoff is more "gutsy" and "wears his heart on his sleeve."

2. Price (arrg.Still): Dances in the Canebrakes Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto Rachmaninoff: Variations on a Theme of Corelli TFO Concertmaster Jeffrey Multer performs Mendelssohn’s brilliant Violin Concerto, one of the most popular in history.It was Mendelssohn’s last major work before he died tragically young at age 38.

3. At 26, Gershwin celebrated the next major triumph of his life as both pianist and composer of his own Rhapsody in Blue, written as a commission for King of Jazz Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. The audience at the February 12, 1924 premiere in New York’s Aeolian Hall included such luminaries as Heifetz, Kreisler, Godowski, Mengelberg, Rachmaninoff, Stokowsky, Stravinsky, Damrosch and Jerome Kern.