2024-01-13 12:54:13
It would take around twelve hours of travel today from this wonderful terrace with the newly opened view to Los Angeles, 9,500 kilometers away. Here, in Hertenstein on Lake Lucerne, the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff spent his last happy pre-war summer. From 1939 onwards he lived in California, where he died two days before his 70th birthday on March 28, 1943, able to afford his luxurious, strenuous traveling life thanks to his extensive and lavishly paid concert work.
That was 80 years ago, and 2023 also marks the 150th anniversary of his birthday on April 1st. Now Rachmaninoff’s Villa Senar – an anagram of Sergei and Natalia Rachmaninoff – is accessible again. Waiting there is the composer’s extra-long Steinway grand piano, which is extremely soft in the middle range, his porcelain, the pictures, the scores, the velvet cushions embroidered with musical instruments.
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Stylistically, it’s just a blink of an eye from the canton of Lucerne to Los Angeles. Because this sleek, cool villa in the “New Building” style, grandiose with a gardener’s house, elevated on a peninsula in the middle of a spacious garden, could also be in Beverly Hills, Rachmaninoff’s last place of residence. To redesign the facility, the pianist had a rock blown away and the exit to the lake including the boathouse completely remodeled.
The Russian, who was driven from his country estate by the revolution in 1917 and became homeless, took up residence on Long Island in the USA, but he was driven back to Europe after he had made money again. Senar became Rachmaninoff’s place of longing and refuge from 1931 onwards – for just nine summers.
Traveling with a refurbished boat
Modernist on the outside, beautifully cozy on the inside, with dark wooden furniture and a samovar, his family life was revived here in a safe place, as was his passion for composing. He finally wrote a third symphony and the Paganini Variations, which repeatedly quoted the medieval Dies Irae motif. And then he got into one of his sleek cars or plowed across the lake to Lucerne in 15 minutes in his souped-up motorboat.
The Rachmaninovs simply left the villa behind in 1939. They wanted to come back. But they were also passionate children of the revolution and fearful of how neutral Switzerland would behave in the face of Hitler’s war of aggression. It was easier to endure in distant America.
Sergei Rachmaninoff in Senar on his extra-long Steinway
Quelle: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images
But Rachmaninoff never saw his dream house again. His grandson Alexandre, son of his younger daughter Tatjana, lived there until his death in 2012. And he had already tried to bring his grandfather’s house back into the public consciousness, but things only got rolling after the mortem. When it became rumored that Russia wanted to access the property in the form of Putin’s piano vassal Denis Mazuyev – to glorify its culture – the canton of Lucerne took action.
In 2022, the three houses and all their memorabilia on the 20,000 square meter dream property were purchased. The canton paid eight million francs to the heirs, invested three million in renovations and initially granted three million for maintenance.
In the meantime, the roses are blooming again in summer in orange and red, the lines of sight are exposed, the exterior paint is yellow instead of ivory, the ground floor is renovated with the remaining furniture and Rachmaninoff accessories – sometimes art, sometimes kitsch. Humanly, and you can really relax in your armchairs with chocolate and espresso. Even sponsors who are not interested in music are happy to hold out.
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The villa, still a residential building, not a museum or concert hall, is already lively again in an exemplary manner – with tours, receptions, local youth music groups, top artists such as the Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov (who really wants to give a master class here) and the Lithuanian star soprano Asmik Grigorian, who has also stayed here.
Grigorian’s pianist Lukas Geniusas has already recorded Rachmaninov’s first piano sonata in the even more difficult one-hour original version on the composer’s grand piano in Senar and published it on Alpha. Alexander Melnikov will follow with his Chopin Variations. This is proudly reported by Andrea Loetscher, flautist, cultural manager and wife of Lucerne Festival boss Michael Haefliger, who runs the foundation responsible for the house in a friendly and efficient manner.
View over Lake Lucerne to Lucerne
Quelle: URS FLUEELER/picture alliance/KEYSTONE
The buildings designed by Alfred Möri and Friedrich Krebs, equipped with ultra-modern bathrooms, linoleum floors and an elevator, with two roof terraces and a winter garden, have long been listed. Old photos and Nocturne sheet music by Françis Poulenc with a handwritten dedication bear witness to social life in Senar. Concert posters tell of his travel life, and his last program sheet from the Lucerne Festival under Ernest Ansermet in the summer of 1939 is there, twelve days before emigration. There are crockery in the display cases, the cutlery with the initials SR engraved on it, a travel trunk and the composer’s knickerbocker suit, which he wore while sawing wood.
There is no doubt about it: in Senar, at the foot of the Rigi, Sergei was human. Things were harmonious here. His instrumental power, depth and brilliance, his driving naturalness and extravagant elegance were followed only by peace. You almost think you can hear the gentle murmur of the steel-gray Lake Lucerne.
Visit registration for Villa Senar at www.rachmaninoff.ch
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