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Rating: By now it must be about ten years old, but "Shine" is one of those films that is not easily forgotten, if only because it is among the few that deal with music with competence and passion, in addition to masterfully portraying the troubled human story of pianist David Helfgott, a surname that sounds a bit ironic (it more or less means "God help you").
If the protagonist is clearly him, the role of the antagonist is less clear. The most direct one is his father, gruff and authoritarian, a sort of sergeant whose ways risk extinguishing young David's passion for music. But there is an underground antagonist, more insidious, which will ultimately prevail over the delicate nervous system of poor David. It is the notorious "Rach 3", the Third Concerto by Rachmaninoff, a colossal mountain of sound that from childhood represents a taboo for David, a challenge to overcome at all costs. The taboo will eventually be broken, but at a steep price: right at the end of an exhausting concert, David's mind will venture to unknown worlds, returning to Earth only after many years of suffering in an asylum. But what is so terrible about the "Rach 3"?
For an oversensitive mind, perhaps it is the deadly overdose of sensations contained within it, even more than the tour de force it represents for any pianist, with its forty-five minutes that keep the piano constantly on edge, engaged more in combat against a powerful orchestra than in dialogue. Sergei Rachmaninoff was a living bundle of contradictions. He was a large man of 1.95 meters with hands as big as shovels, yet he was one of the greatest keyboard virtuosos of his time. He was a quiet family man leading a reserved life, yet he composed music with unrestrained, sometimes almost shameless sensuality. But above all, despite living until 1943, he was little affected by the musical revolutions of the early 1900s. His style always remained that of a late Romantic, like his old teacher Tchaikovsky, and even well into the twentieth century, he continued to compose typically nineteenth-century music. This Concerto, which enjoyed a remarkable debut (conducted by Gustav Mahler in 1909), fully expresses the overflowing chromatic richness of "Russian" compositions, those preceding his forced relocation to America following the Russian Revolution of 1917, which deprived the well-off Rachmaninoff of his possessions. In the USA, Rachmaninoff found fame and fortune, but he almost completely lost his inspiration.
The Third Concerto opens with an "Allegro ma non tanto" in which two themes confront and intertwine in various combinations: one nervous and dramatic, the other more languid and elegiac. The first theme is exposed by the piano almost in a subdued tone, but it is only an illusion: by the second exposition it has already assumed the shape of a cascade of notes, not to mention the unsettling final recapitulation, where the notes seem hammered home. The second theme intervenes multiple times to break the tension of the first. Noteworthy, roughly halfway through the movement, is a frenetic "bridge" in which the piano and orchestra seem to pant in unison, with a gradual acceleration up to the liberating explosion of the trumpets: a kind of "musical orgasm," the pinnacle of the sensuality with which the concerto is filled. In the second movement, "Intermezzo (Adagio)", the pianist can just catch a breath at the beginning, when the orchestra outlines an exotic-sounding motif that recalls Rimsky-Korsakov's exotic "Sheherazade" (another illustrious teacher of Rachmaninoff). But the piano is soon called back to enrich the "Arab theme" and its developments with precious arpeggios, trills, and sweet scales of notes. When the listener is almost in a trance, a sudden jolt introduces the third movement, "Finale (Alla breve)", whose main theme is presented somewhat mechanically by the piano with well-stressed notes, then reworked into complex developments, finally resumed with a devastating acceleration, which in turn prepares a triumphant finale, in which a tender and romantic melody manages to break through a powerful and compact wall of orchestral sound.
After this description, and considering what happened to David Helfgott, to avoid any misunderstanding, let me clarify that there is nothing to fear: the Concerto is stunning and thoroughly enjoyable for the listener. Maybe a bit less so for those who have to perform it, but in the end, there must be immense satisfaction in having succeeded, especially if done superbly like Martha Argerich in this exemplary interpretation. There are also versions by poor Helfgott, on whom some vultures have speculated after the film: interesting but only to understand the pianist's sensitivity.
In conclusion, an avalanche of notes may impress, but it has never buried anyone. Or almost...
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