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Six moments musicaux, Op. 16, is a set of solo piano pieces composed by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff between October and December 1896. Each Moment musical reproduces a musical form characteristic of a previous musical era. The forms that appear in Rachmaninoff's incarnation are the nocturne, song without words, barcarolle, virtuoso étude, and theme and variations.
The individual pieces have been described as "true concert works, being best served on a stage and with a concert grand." Although composed as part of a set, each piece stands on its own as a concert solo with individual themes and moods. The pieces span a variety of themes ranging from the funeral march of number three to the canon of number six, the Moments musicaux are both Rachmaninoff's return to and revolution of solo piano composition. A typical performance lasts 30 minutes.

In an interview in 1941, Rachmaninoff said, "What I try to do, when writing down my music, is to make it say simply and directly that which is in my heart when I am composing." Even though Moments musicaux were written because he was short of money, the pieces summarize his knowledge of piano composition up to that point.

By the fall of 1896, 23-year old Rachmaninoff's financial status was precarious, not helped by his being robbed of money on an earlier train trip. Pressed for time, both financially and by those expecting a symphony, he "rushed into production." On December 7, he wrote to Aleksandr Zatayevich, a Russian composer he had met before he had composed the work, saying, "I hurry in order to get money I need by a certain date ... This perpetual financial pressure is, on the one hand, quite beneficial ... by the 20th of this month I have to write six piano pieces." Rachmaninoff completed all six during October and December 1896, and dedicated all to Zatayevich. Despite the hasty circumstances, the work evidences his early virtuosity, and sets an example for the quality of his future works.

The fourth piece is similar to the second in the quality of its performance. The fourth piece reveals resemblance to Chopin's Revolutionary étude in the taxing left hand figure place throughout. The piece is 67 measures long, with a duration of about three minutes, and has the fastest tempo of the set, Presto (quick) at 104 quarter notes per minute, and is the shortest work in terms of playing time.
Left hand figure in opening Presto (top) and third section's Più vivo. The "registral displacement" (highlighted) alters certain notes in the familiar figure to increase tension.
Presto is in ternary form with a coda. The piece begins with a fortissimo introduction with a thick texture in the left hand consisting of chromatic sextuplets. The melody is a "rising quasi-military" idea, interspersed between replications of the left hand figure, the mostly two-note melody being a strong unifying element. The middle section is a brief period of pianissimo falling figures in the right hand and rising scales in the left. The third section is marked Più vivo (more life) and is played even faster than the intro, 112 quarter notes per minute. At this point the piece develops a very thick texture, with the original left hand figure played in both hands in varying registers. The technique of rapidly changing the octave in which a melody is played, sometimes called "registral displacement", is used to present the figure in a more dramatic form that increases the intensity of the ending. The ending, a coda in Prestissimo (very quick), 116 quarter notes per minute, is a final, sweeping reiteration of the theme that closes in a heavy E minor chord, which revisits Rachmaninoff's preoccupation with bell sounds, prominent in his Piano Concerto No. 2 and Prelude in C♯ minor (Op. 3, No. 2).

The piece is a major exercise in endurance and accuracy: the introduction opens in a left hand figure requiring span of a tenth interval. Additionally, octave intervals invariably appear before fast sextuplet runs, making quick wrists and arm action necessary. The double melodies Rachmaninoff uses in this work exists purposely to "keep both hands occupied," obscuring the melody and making it difficult for the right hand to project. This is the only piece in the set with indicated pedal markings.

Source: wikipedia.org

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