Sergei Rachmaninoff
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| Sergei Rachmaninoff | |
|---|---|
Rachmaninoff in 1921
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| Born | Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 Veliky Novgorod, Russian Empire |
| Died | 28 March 1943 (aged 69) Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Melanoma |
| Resting place | Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Moscow Conservatory |
| Occupation | Composer, pianist and conductor |
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов;[1] Russian pronunciation: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej rɐxˈmanʲɪnəf]; 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943),[2] was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor.[3] Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of all time and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.[4]
Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a personal style notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors.[5] The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument.
Contents
[hide]Life[edit]
Childhood and youth[edit]
The Rachmaninoff family, of Russian and distant Moldavian descent, was part of the Russian aristocracy, having been in the service of the Russian tsars since the 16th century, and had strong musical and military leanings. The composer's father, Vasily Arkadyevich Rachmaninoff (1841–1916), an amateur pianist and army officer, married Lyubov Petrovna Butakova (1853–1929), gained five estates as a dowry, and had three boys and three girls.[6] Sergei was born on 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873[7] at the estate of Semyonovo, in Oneg, near Great Novgorod in north-western Russia.[8]
When he was four, his mother gave him casual piano lessons,[9] but it was his paternal grandfather, Arkady Alexandrovich, who brought Anna Ornatskaya, a teacher from Saint Petersburg, to teach Sergei in 1882. Ornatskaya remained for "two or three years", until Vasily had to auction off their home due to his financial incompetence—the five estates had been reduced to one; he was described as "a wastrel, a compulsive gambler, a pathological liar, and a skirt chaser"[10][11]—and they moved to a small flat in Saint Petersburg.[12]
Ornatskaya returned to her home, and arranged for Sergei to study at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which he entered in 1883, at age ten. That year his sister Sofia died of diphtheria, and his father left the family, with their approval, for Moscow.[6] Sergei's maternal grandmother stepped in to help raise the children, especially focusing on their spiritual life. She regularly took Sergei to Russian Orthodox services, where he was first exposed to the liturgicalchants and the church bells of the city, which would later permeate many of his compositions.[12]
Another important musical influence was his sister Yelena's involvement in the Bolshoi Theatre. She was just about to join the company, being offered coaching and private lessons, but she fell ill and died of pernicious anemia at the age of 18. As a respite from this tragedy, grandmother Butakova brought him to a farm retreat on the Volkhov River, where he had a boat and developed a love for rowing.[6] Having been spoiled in this way by his grandmother, he became lazy and failed his general education classes, altering his report cards, in what Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov would later call a period of "purely Russian self-delusion and laziness."[13]
In 1885, back at the Conservatory, Sergei played at important events often attended by Grand Duke Konstantin and other important people, but he failed his spring academic examinations and Ornatskaya notified his mother that his admission might be revoked.[6] Lyubov consulted with her nephew (by marriage)Alexander Siloti, already an accomplished pianist studying under Franz Liszt. After appraising his cousin's pianism and listening skills, Siloti recommended that Sergei attend the Moscow Conservatory to study with his own original teacher and disciplinarian, Nikolai Zverev.[14][15]
Graduation[edit]
Neighboring families would come to visit, and Rachmaninoff would find his first romance in the Skalon family, with Vera, the youngest of three daughters. The mother would have none of that, and he was forbidden to write to her, so he corresponded with her older sister, Natalia, and from these letters much information about his early compositions can be extracted.[14] In the spring of 1891, he took his final piano examination at the Moscow Conservatory and passed with honors. He moved to Ivanovka with Siloti, and composed some songs and began what would become his Piano Concerto No. 1 (Op. 1). During his final studies at the Conservatory he completed Youth Symphony, a one-movement symphonic piece, Prince Rostislav, a symphonic poem, and The Rock(Op. 7), a fantasia for orchestra.[6]
He gave his first independent concert on 11 February 1892, premiering his Trio élégiaque No. 1, with violinist David Kreyn and cellist Anatoliy Brandukov. He performed the first movement of his first piano concerto on 29 March 1892 in an over-long concert consisting of entire works of most of the composition students at the Conservatory.[16]
His final composition for the Conservatory was Aleko, a one-act opera based on the poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin, which Rachmaninoff completed while staying with his father in Moscow.[17] It was first performed on 19 May 1892, and although he responded with a pessimistic, "the opera is sure to fail," it was so successful, the Bolshoi Theatre agreed to produce it, starring Feodor Chaliapin.[14] It gained him the Great Gold Medal, awarded only twice before (to Sergei Taneyev and Arseny Koreshchenko[18]), and has since had many more productions than his later works, The Miserly Knight (Op. 24, 1904) and Francesca da Rimini (Op. 25, 1905). The Conservatory issued him a diploma on 29 May 1892, and now, at the age of 19, he could officially style himself "Free Artist."[6]
Rachmaninoff continued to compose, publishing at this time his Six Songs (Op. 4) and Two Pieces (Op. 2). He spent the summer of 1892 on the estate of Ivan Konavalov, a rich landowner in the Kostroma Oblast, and moved back with the Satins in the Arbat District.[6] His publisher was slow in paying, so Rachmaninoff took an engagement at the Moscow Electrical Exhibition, where he premiered his landmark Prelude in C-sharp minor (Op. 3, No. 2).[19] This small piece, part of a set of five pieces called Morceaux de fantaisie, was received well, and is one of his most enduring pieces.[20][21]
He spent the summer of 1893 in Lebedyn with some friends, where he composed Fantaisie-Tableaux (Suite No. 1, Op. 5) and his Morceaux de salon(Op. 10).[22] At the summer's end, he moved back to Moscow, and at Sergei Taneyev's house discussed with Tchaikovsky the possibility of his conductingThe Rock at its premiere. However, because it had to be premiered in Moscow, not Europe, where Tchaikovsky was touring, Vasily Safonov conducted it instead, and the two met soon after for Zverev's funeral. Rachmaninoff had a short excursion to conduct Aleko in Kiev, and on his return, received the news about Tchaikovsky's unexpected death on 6 November [O.S. 25 October] 1893. On the same day, he began work on his Trio élégiaque No. 2, just as Tchaikovsky had quickly written his Trio in A minor after Nikolai Rubinstein's death. The music's overwhelming aura of gloom reveals the depth and sincerity of his grief.[23]
Setbacks and recovery[edit]
Rachmaninoff's First Symphony (Op. 13, 1896) was premiered on 28 March 1897 in one of a long-running series of "Russian Symphony Concerts", but was brutally panned by critic and nationalist composer César Cui, who likened it to a depiction of the ten plagues of Egypt, suggesting it would be admired by the "inmates" of a music conservatory in hell.[24] The deficiencies of the performance, conducted by Alexander Glazunov, were not commented on by critics.[23] Alexander Ossovsky in his memoir about Rachmaninoff[25] tells, first hand, a story about this event.[26] In Ossovsky's opinion, Glazunov made poor use of rehearsal time, and the concert program itself, which contained two other premières, was also a factor. Natalia Satina, later Rachmaninoff's wife, and other witnesses suggested that Glazunov, who was by all accounts an alcoholic, may have been drunk, although this was never intimated by Rachmaninoff.[27][28]
After the poor reception of his First Symphony, Rachmaninoff fell into a period of deep depression that lasted three years, during which he wrote almost nothing. One stroke of good fortune came from Savva Mamontov, a famous Russian industrialist and patron of the arts, who two years earlier had founded the Moscow Private Russian Opera Company. He offered Rachmaninoff the post of assistant conductor for the 1897–8 season and the cash-strapped composer accepted. The company included the great basso Feodor Chaliapin, who would become a lifelong friend.[29] During this period he became engaged to his first cousin and fellow pianist Natalia Satina, whom he had known since childhood. The Russian Orthodox Church and Natalia's parents both opposed their marriage and this thwarting of their plans only deepened Rachmaninoff's depression.
In January 1900, Rachmaninoff and Chaliapin were invited to Yasnaya Polyana, the home of writer Leo Tolstoy, whom Rachmaninoff greatly admired. That evening, Rachmaninoff played one of his compositions, then accompanied Chaliapin in his song "Fate", one of the pieces he had written after his First Symphony. At the end of the performance, Tolstoy took the composer aside and asked: "Is such music needed by anyone? I must tell you how I dislike it all.Beethoven is nonsense, Pushkin and Lermontov also". (The song "Fate" is based on the two opening measures of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.) As his guests were leaving, Tolstoy said: "Forgive me if I've hurt you by my comments"; and Rachmaninoff graciously replied: "How could I be hurt on my own account, if I was not hurt on Beethoven's?"; but the criticism of the great author stung nevertheless.
In the same year, Rachmaninoff began a course of autosuggestive therapy with psychologist Nikolai Dahl, who was himself an excellent though amateur musician. Rachmaninoff began to recover his confidence and eventually he was able to overcome his writer's block. In 1901 he completed his Piano ConcertoNo. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 and dedicated it to Dr. Dahl. The piece was enthusiastically received at its premiere at which Rachmaninoff was soloist and has since become one of the most popular and frequently played concertos in the repertoire. Rachmaninoff's spirits were further bolstered when, after three years of engagement, he was finally allowed to marry his cousin[30]and beloved fiancée, Natalia. They were wed in a suburb of Moscow by an army priest on 29 April 1902, using the family's military background to circumvent the church. The marriage was a happy one, producing two daughters: Irina Sergeievna Rachmaninova (Moscow, 9 June 1903 – 1969), later Princess Wolkonsky through her marriage to Prince Pyotr Grigoriyevich Wolkonsky (Moscow, 16 January 1897 – 12 August 1925) – by whom she had a daughter, Princess Sophia Petrovna Wolkonskaya (Paris, 4 September 1925 – 1960), who married firstly on 28 September 1950 Dallas Coors, without issue, and married secondly to a Wannamaker, by whom she had two children -, and Tatiana Sergeievna Rachmaninova Conus (1907–1961). Although Rachmaninoff was rumored to have had an affair with the 22-year-old singer Nina Koshetz in 1916, his and Natalia's union lasted until the composer's death. Natalia Rachmaninova died in 1951. His grandniece Aniela, French of Russian descent, married wine merchant Claude Bettel and is the mother of Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of Luxembourg.[31][32][33]
After several successful appearances as a conductor, Rachmaninoff was offered a job as conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1904, although political reasons led to his resignation in March 1906, after which he stayed in Italy until July. He spent the following three winters in Dresden, Germany, intensively composing, and returning to the family estate of Ivanovka every summer.[34]
Rachmaninoff made his first tour of the United States as a pianist in 1909, an event for which he composed the Piano Concerto No. 3 (Op. 30, 1909) as a calling card. These successful concerts made him a popular figure in America; however, he was unhappy on the tour and declined requests for future American concerts until after he emigrated from Russia in 1917.[34]This included an offer to become permanent conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.[35]
In 1912, Rachmaninoff quit in protest from his position as the vice-president of the Russian Musical Society, when he heard that a musician in an administrative post with the organization was to be dismissed on the grounds that the musician was Jewish.[36] Sergei Bertensson writes that Rachmaninoff took his position in the society seriously, "and for Rachmaninoff 'seriously' meant with moral as well as artistic seriousness: these were really fused in him."[36]
The early death in 1915 of Alexander Scriabin, who had been his good friend and fellow student at the Moscow Conservatory, affected Rachmaninoff so deeply that he went on a tour giving concerts entirely devoted to Scriabin's music. When asked to play some of his own music, he would reply: "Only Scriabin tonight".
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