Which cadenza for his 3rd Piano Concerto did Rachmaninoff truly prefer?

This is all a little more complicated than might meet the eye at first sight and it's not a mere case of 'preferring' on Rachmaninoff's part -- his choices as a performer and his will as a composer are not the same thing and he often acts as a performer quite contrary to his will as a composer, including in too many instances in this particular work, too, and mainly not in his own best interests as the creator of the work -- as you will soon see. My source in regard to what follows is the copy of the handwritten autograph full score of op.30 as currently sprawled all over my desk like a black/white marble slab... :-)

Structurally there is *only one* cadenza to op.30 and this is the one you now know as the 'Ossia'. Without it, there occur a number of crucial structural events later on in the concerto which make no sense. Rachmaninoff the performer never proved concerned about this, nor did he show any perturbation about other cuts he made incidentally in specific performances of the work which do even further damage to the inexorable logic of the piece if everything is left completely in accordance with the original score, finalised in 1909.

The original cadenza (that is to say, the one now known as the 'Ossia') occurs on pages 56-59 of the first movement of the autograph score (each movement is page numbered from '1' again afresh) and is clearly written 'as one'. the second, 'lighter' cadenza is contained, in the main, on an inserted page '57bis' with 'jump instructions' as to where & how it is to be inserted into the overall fabric of the work. To this end, the incipit to the second cadenza is also located on the same page 56 as is the original cadenza and there is no immediate indication that the start to the second cadenza is not contemporaneous with that of the original cadenza.

Detailed study under magnification shows no obvious change in ink colour or intensity with regard to either cadenza's opening bars *but* that does not remove the possibility that the whole of page 56 was written again to make the accommodation for the two cadenza openings on the single page.

What is written unquestionably at a different time, in another ink shade and with probably a different nib to the pen is the word 'Ossia' introduced above the original cadenza. That is not, given the evidence, contemporaneous with the other writing on the score at this point.

There is no direct evidence that Rachmaninoff ever *did* perform the original cadenza, and there are other considerations which I won't go into here, which make it likely that he would actively not have wanted to do so. He certainly discouraged anyone throughout his lifetime from taking up what by then became known as the 'Ossia' cadenza which, consequent upon that, became the Marie Celeste of cadenzas, not performed until the mid 1960s in any meaningful number of instances. I can still remember attending one of the very first and was myself one of the earlier adopters of the original cadenza in performance in the 1970s.

The evidence from the original score only strengthens this element of op.30's performance history -- the alternative 'light' cadenza being there almost from the outset. Just the work's very structure in every detail reveals which is the one that should take its rightful place to the exclusion of any other. It is the word 'Ossia' that is in truth in quite the wrong place... :-)

All the best,

Rachmaninoff Autograph