Youth of Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1 April 1873 [O.S. 20 March]–28 March 1943), Russian composer and pianist, lived through tumultuous times. Born into an aristocratic, musical family in Semyonovo, near Veliky Novgorod, he was surrounded by music as a child and lived a comfortable life in Saint Petersburg. Moving into the house of his first official piano teacher, Nikolai Zverev, he transformed from an indulgent youth to an accomplished pianist. After completing his formal studies at the Moscow Conservatory, he began to compose as a "Free Artist", and flourished. He married his cousin Natalia Satina in 1902, and had two daughters. Following the ending of the Russian Revolution of 1917, they emigrated to the United States and his music was banned in Russia. He died on March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California.

Youth

Upbringing and early influences

Rachmaninoff at age 10

The Rachmaninoff family was a part of an "old aristocracy", where all of the attitude but none of the money remained. The family, of Tatar descent, had 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 (1841–1916), an amateur pianist and army officer, married Lyubov Petrovna Butakova (1853–1929), and had three boys and three girls, the most significant being Sergei. He was born on April 1, 1873 in the town of Semyonovo, near Veliky Novgorod in north-western Russia. When he was four, his mother gave him casual piano lessons, 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 financial problems, and they moved to a small flat in Saint Petersburg.

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 diptheria, and his feckless father left the family for Moscow. Lyubov's mother, Butakova, 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 liturgical chants and the church bells of the city, which would later permeate many of his compositions. Another importance musical influence was his sister Yelena's involvement in the Bolshoi Theater. 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. 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."

In 1885, back at the Conservatory, Sergei played at important events often attended by Grand Duke Konstantin and other celebrities, but he failed his spring academic examinations and Ornatskaya notified his mother that his admission might be revoked. Lyubov consulted with her nephew (by marriage) Alexander Siloti, already an accomplished pianist studying under Franz Liszt, who, after appraising his cousin's pianism and listening skills, recommended that Sergei go to his own original teacher and disciplinarian, Nikolai Zverev.

Zverev and first compositions

Nikolai Zverev (center) shaped Rachmaninoff (standing, second from right) into a mature and developed musician.

Zverev was born in 1832 into an aristocratic family like the Rachmaninoffs, and attended Moscow University but did not graduate, instead moving to Saint Petersburg to pursue piano studies with Adolf von Henselt, who provided the basis for Zverev's strict reputation. After being persuaded by Nikolai Rubinstein, he settled in Moscow and, began teaching piano privately and at the Moscow Conservatory. His private students moved into his house, submitting to his total authority. Rachmaninoff, under Siloti's auspices, was accepted to Zverev's private instruction and moved in during the autumn of 1885.

While there, he flourished. Zverev was much involved in the classical life of Moscow, and Rachmaninoff was able to see operas, concerts, and plays, and played in front of musical celebrities including Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Anton Rubinstein at Zverev's open house events. By 1886, he was taking harmony courses with Anton Arensky and began to work on minor piano compositions, including Three Nocturnes (1886) and Four Pieces (1887). In 1888, he scored the highest grade attainable on a music theory exam, and Tchaikovsky bade him enroll in Alexander Taneyev's advanced counterpoint class, saying, "For him I predict a great future." However, the stimulus provided by Taneyev's class bolstered his enthusiasm for composing, much to the chagrin of Zverev, who was exclusively a performer. He asked for a separate room to compose, but Zverev took it badly and Rachmaninoff only stayed in the house for one further month. He moved into the Satin house, the family of his father's sister, where they vacationed at Ivanovka in the summers and led a generally easy life.

Graduation

While living with the Satins, Rachmaninoff (standing, second from left) would vacation at Ivanovka, their summer house. He would marry his cousin Natalia Satina (sitting, second from left).

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. 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 of his early 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 Rotislav, a symphonic poem, and The Rock (Op. 7), a fantasia for orchestra. He gave his first independent concert on February 11, 1892, premiering his Trio élégiaque No. 1, with violinist David Kreyn and cellist Anatoliy Brandukov, and performed the first movement of his first piano concerto on March 29, 1892 in an interminable concert consisted of entire works of most of the composition students at the Conservatory.

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. It was first performed on May 19, 1892, and although he responded with a pessimistic, "the opera is sure to fail," it was so successful, the Bolshoi Theater agreed to produce it, starring Feodor Chaliapin. It has since had many more productions than his later works, The Miserly Knight (Op. 24, 1904) and Francesca da Rimini (Op. 25, 1905), and gained him the Great Gold Medal, awarded only twice before. The Conservatory issued him a diploma on May 29, 1892, and now, at the age of 19, he could officially style himself "Free Artist."

Young adulthood

Rachmaninoff composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 (Op. 1, 1891) at the age of 19.

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. 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)

The sudden death of Tchaikovsky in 1893 made a strong impression on Rachmaninoff, affecting his emotional state, his personality as well as his creativity.

Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 1 (Op. 13, 1896) premiered on 27 March 1897 in one of a long-running series of "Russian Symphony Concerts," but was torn apart by critics. In a particularly vitriolic review by a nationalist composer César Cui, it was likened to a depiction of the ten plagues of Egypt and suggested that it would be admired by the "inmates" of a music conservatory in hell. (Remarkably, César Cui is the only member of the group of Russian nationalist composers known as The Five whose music is hardly ever performed now.) It is often mooted that the criticisms stem from inadequacy of the performance; the conducting of Alexander Glazunov is often remembered as a problem: he liked the piece, but was a weak conductor and starved of rehearsal time.

Rachmaninoff's wife and other witnesses later suggested that Glazunov may have been drunk and, although this was never intimated by Rachmaninoff, it would not seem out of character.

Rachmaninoff (right) and Feodor Chaliapin, a friend who performed some of Rachmaninoff's operas

In early January 1900, Rachmaninoff and singer Feodor Chaliapin were invited to Leo Tolstoy's house. Rachmaninoff had greatly respected the author. That evening, Rachmaninoff played one of his compositions, then accompanied Chaliapin in his song “Fate,” one of the pieces Rachmaninoff had written after his First Symphony. After they had finished, Tolstoy took Rachmaninoff aside and started, "Tell me, 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.) And when they were leaving, Tolstoy said, "Forgive me if I've hurt you by my comments," and Rachmaninoff replied, "How could I be hurt on my own account, if I was not hurt on Beethoven’s?"

The disastrous reception of his Symphony No 1, the evening with Tolstoy and his distress over the Eastern Orthodox Church's objection to his marrying his cousin, Natalia Satina, contributed to a period of severe depression.

Rachmaninoff wrote little music over the following years, until he began a course of autosuggestive therapy with psychologist Nikolai Dahl, himself an amateur musician. Rachmaninoff quickly recovered confidence and overcame his writer's block. A result of these sessions was the composition of Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18, 1900–01), dedicated to Dr. Dahl. The piece was very well received at its premiere, at which Rachmaninoff was soloist, and remains one of his most popular compositions.

Rachmaninoff's spirits were further bolstered when, after years of engagement, he was finally allowed to marry Natalia. They were married in a suburb of Moscow by an army priest on 29 April 1902. Despite his infamous affair with the 22-year-old singer Nina Koshetz in 1916, his and Natalia's union lasted until the composer's death. 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 (in Florence and then Marina di Pisa) until July. He spent the following three winters in Dresden, Germany, intensively composing, and returning to the family estate of Ivanovka every summer.

Adulthood

Rachmaninoff (right) and his first cousin, Alexander Siloti, who was responsible for some of Rachmaninoff's popularity in America

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. This successful tour made him a popular figure in America.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, which meant the end of the old Russia, and the loss of his estate, on 22 December 1917, Rachmaninoff with his wife and two daughters left Saint Petersburg for Helsinki on an open sledge, having only a few notebooks with sketches of his own compositions. Then he took a train to Stockholm, arriving there for Christmas. They never returned to their homeland. Rachmaninoff then settled in Denmark and spent a year giving concerts in Scandinavia. He left from Kristiania (Oslo) to New York on 1 November 1918, which marked the beginning of the American period of the composer's life. After Rachmaninoff's departure, his music was banned in the Soviet Union for several years. His compositional output slowed, partly because he was required to spend much of his time performing to support his family, but mainly because of homesickness; he felt that, when he left Russia, it was as if he had left behind some of his inspiration. A more obvious reason to cut down on composing was that he was in great demand as a concert pianist, and touring took most of his time and energy. While still in Russia, he had had about ten pieces in his piano repertoire (that is, of other composers; in Russia he mostly performed his own compositions). When he came to the US, he re-invented himself as a concert pianist; in fact he became one of the top pianists of his generation, the generation that is now referred to as the Golden Age of Piano Playing.

Rachmaninoff with daughter Irina at Ivanovka, 1913

Rachmaninoff played most of his public performances on Steinway & Sons pianos. He owned two New York Steinways D-274 concert grands in his Beverly Hills home on Elm Drive, he also owned a New York Steinway D in his New York home, however, in 1933, he chose a Hamburg Steinway D-274 for his new home, villa Senar, in Switzerland.

Rachmaninoff, in his later years, toured the United States extensively, and remained there from 1918 until his death.

After emigration, Rachmaninoff had an extremely busy concert schedule. He played over a thousand solo piano concerts in America, in addition to his tours in Europe. He made over one hundred studio recordings of his own music as well as the music of his favorites, Chopin and Beethoven, among others. Due to his busy concert career, Rachmaninoff had a decreased output as composer. Between 1892 and 1917 (living mostly in Russia), Rachmaninoff wrote thirty-nine compositions with opus numbers. Between 1918 and his death in 1943, while living in the U.S. and Europe, he completed only six. His revival as composer became possible only after he built himself a new home, Villa Senar on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, where he spent summers from 1932 to 1939. There, in the comfort of his own villa which reminded him of this family estate Ivanovka back in Russia, Rachmaninoff composed the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Settling in the U.S., Rachmaninoff began making recordings for Thomas Edison in 1919, recording on an upright piano that the inventor admitted was below average; however, the discs provided the composer with some much-needed income. The next year he signed an exclusive contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company and continued to make recordings for Victor until February 1942.

In 1931, together with other Russian exiles, he helped found a music school in Paris which would later bear his name, the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff. His Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, today one of his best-known works, was written in his home, Villa Senar, Switzerland in 1934. He went on to compose his Symphony No. 3 (Op. 44, 1935–36) and the Symphonic Dances (Op. 45, 1940), his last completed work. Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered the Symphonic Dances in 1941 in the Academy of Music. Rachmaninoff fell ill during a concert tour in late 1942, and was subsequently diagnosed with advanced sarcoma.

Rachmaninoff and his wife became American citizens on 1 February 1943. His last recital, given on 17 February 1943 at the Alumni Gymnasium of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, prophetically featured Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat Minor, which contains the famous Funeral March. A statue called "Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert", designed and sculpted by Victor Bokarev, now stands in World Fair Park in Knoxville as a permanent tribute to Rachmaninoff.

Final years

As Rachmaninoff became more and more aware of the fact that he would never again return to his beloved homeland, he was overwhelmed with melancholia. Most people who knew him later in life described him as the saddest man they had ever known. In a 1961 interview, conductor Eugene Ormandy declared: "...among his close friends, he had a very good sense of humor and was in good spirits."

The grave of Sergei Rachmaninoff in Kensico Cemetery

Rachmaninoff died on March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California, just four days before his 70th birthday, and was interred on June 1 in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

External links

• Template:Ru icon Senar - photographs, recordings, letters