In case anyone was wondering, the piece Benjamin Linus was playing on LOST (in the episode “The Shape Of Things To Come“) was Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C# minor. It is a wonderful piece, which I once upon a time could just about make it through from beginning to end. The middle section is challenging to play, never mind to play with proper emphasis on the four descending tones so as to bring them out above the rest of the frantic notes. I never quite got there, and so I can’t blame Ben for travelling through time and ensuring that his compound would come under siege at just the right moment so that we wouldn’t catch him making mistakes in that part of the piece…
Rachmaninov wrote some wonderful music. Listen to the second and third piano concertos and the second symphony if you’ve never heard them. But perhaps most technically impressive are the second set of Etudes Tableaux, Op. 39 No. 1 and No. 3 – in particular as played by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Here are some other performers:
If you’d rather hear the full piece Ben was playing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVDUdI-YuoE