Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was one of the most famous composers, conductors and, above all, pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in Semyonovo, a small town near Novgorod, but he incorrectly listed his birthplace as Oneg because his family moved there to a farm when young Sergei was four years old.
Musical beginnings
Rachmaninov came from an officer’s family and was expected to continue in the „family trade“, but his great musical talent (and the fact that his father made less than brilliant financial decisions, thereby preventing an expensive education for his son), changed those plans. Due to the unenviable financial situation, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where little Seryozha started his piano studies at the conservatory. Soon after that, his father and mother split up, his father went to Moscow, and his mother, Lubov Petrovna Butakova, was left to take care of the children alone in St. Petersburg.
While Lubov Petrovna was busy taking care of the children and barely making ends meet, young Sergei neglected his studies and received bad grades (except in piano lessons, where he could shine without much trouble), so he revised them in his report card and hid the truth from a mother who was too busy to notice his deception. Sergei lied about his grades so that his mother would not forbid him to spend the summer with his grandmother, whom he loved very much.
However, since we are all aware that such petty lies are not very sustainable, the real grades came to light and his mother, on the recommendation of his relative Alexander Siloti, sent him to Moscow to study under the auspices of the respected professor Nikolai Zverev. Sergei looked forward to at least going to Moscow with his sister Yelena, who was also musically gifted and introduced him to the works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, but unfortunately, in 1885, she died.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, age 10, Saint Petersburg (Photo: en.wikipedia.org)
Life in Moscow
The chapter of his young life spent in Moscow with Zverev was filled with round-the-clock practice that began at six in the morning. Zverev took him and two other students in to live with him, provided them with accommodation, food and clothing without asking for payment, but in return he demanded that he be the one to decide on everything related to their lives while they were there. He was a strict professor who demanded military discipline. He spared no expense in their musical education and provided them with tickets to the concerts to which the boys were obliged to go, in order to develop their musical taste. Sunday was reserved for home „performances“, to which Zverev would invite prominent people and musicians, including Tchaikovsky, for whom the students would play. Zverev did not allow any of the guests to play on Sundays, unless it was for the purpose of demonstrating some technique or advice for young pianists. On that day, the professor would say that everything the boys played was excellent.
Nikolai Zverev, (Photo: en.wikipedia.org)
The time of his studies, and life in Russia in general, was the most fruitful period for Rachmaninov as a composer. In 1891, he composed his first piano concerto, and in 1892, as a graduation thesis in composition, he wrote a one-act opera Aleko, for which he was awarded a gold medal for composition. Tchaikovsky attended the premiere at the Bolshoi Theater and praised Rachmaninov and his work. In the same year, he composed one of his more famous works, the Prelude in C sharp minor.
Writers block and depression
A successful period for Rachmaninov lasted until 1897, when his first symphony was premiered and ended disastrously. Critics crucified him like Jesus on a cross, and allegedly the conductor, Aleksandar Glazunov (who was an alcoholic by the way, if Shostakovich was to be believed – he said that the conductor held a bottle of alcohol behind the table and drank from a straw during the lessons), was drunk at the time of the premiere, which certainly did not help the performance.
The debacle with the premiere of the first symphony, with the added pressure from the church that did not allow him to marry his cousin Natalya Satinova, caused Rachmaninoff depression and writers block. He composed almost nothing for three years. He even consulted Leo Tolstoy about his problem, but he did not help him much.
Returning to composing in a grand style – piano concerto no. 2
In 1900, he went to doctor Nikolai Dahl, who suggested hypnotherapy and supportive therapy sessions. After a few months, Rachmaninoff said that new musical ideas began to come to him, and the following year he composed one of his most famous works, the Piano Concerto no. 2, which he dedicated to Dahl. This composition was popularized when it was used in the film „Brief Encounter“ from 1946, but also a century later, in the film „Bridget Jones’s Diary“, where its theme is heard in the well-known song „All by myself“ performed by Celine Dion.
In 1902, he married his cousin Natalya Satinova after a three-year engagement, despite pressure from the church, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. They travelled Europe and America together on Rachmaninoff’s tours and escaped to the USA after the October Revolution. They had two daughters, Irina and Tatiana.
Although primarily a pianist and a composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff was an excellent conductor. In 1904 he became the chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre, and he stayed in that position for two years, performing over 90 times.
After the great success he had with the second piano concerto, Rachmaninoff ventured out and composed his second symphony, which he completed in 1908. It became arguably his most brilliant orchestral work. With this, he finally managed to completely get rid of his fear of composing and regain faith in himself and his work.
Emigration to the USA
He had his first encounter with America on a tour in 1909/10, which proved to be very successful and made him a very popular personality. After returning from the tour, he was given the position of vice president of the Imperial Russian Music Society, but he would leave it two years later, allegedly because he learned that a musician had been fired simply because he was Jewish.
As the situation in Russia heated up, and the revolution was on the horizon, the family estate was confiscated by the revolutionaries. Rachmaninov swore he would never return there. At the time, it was difficult to leave the country without a special reason and permission, but luckily he got an offer to give ten recitals in Scandinavia, which he accepted, packed his family and left. During this period, he began to practice very intensively, develop his technique and expand his repertoire, so that he could perform enough to feed his family. During this tour, he received 3 offers from America, but he rejected them all. In the end, however, he saw that leaving for the United States was the most financially profitable option.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (Staatsarchiv Luzern, FDC 132/5793)
He spent the next 25 years of his life in America. As for his composing career, it was not so fruitful in terms of quantity – in 25 years he wrote only six compositions, saying that he left the will to compose in Russia (admittedly, one of them is the famous Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, so we can say that he was productive). In the US he was primarily a pianist. He travelled the USA together with the company Steinway and Sons, who offered him to accompany their instruments on tour and give performances. This collaboration lasted until the end of his life.
He spent a good part of his time in Switzerland, where he built a villa, where he rested and composed (there he finished the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini).
In his private life he wa friends with various musicians, including Igor Stravinsky and Vladimir Horowitz (they were neighbours in Beverly Hills).
He died of an aggressive form of melanoma, just two months after he officially became a citizen of the United States of America and four days before his 70th birthday. He wanted to be buried in Moscow where Scriabin, Tanaev and Chekhov were buried, but the Second World War made that impossible, so he was buried in Valhalla, New York.
