He is the author of a handful of melodies of intimate lyricism that are mixed with passages of captivating passion. His works for his piano are extremely technically demanding because he composed them with the idea of interpreting them himself, and his technique was formidable and he relied on huge hands that allowed him real feats. The popularity that he achieved already in life both in his facet as an interpreter and in that of a composer was very great, a fame that was magnified by the effect of record recordings. The result is that several of his works, especially the piano concertos Nos. 2 and 3 and ‘Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini’ (especially Variation No. 18) are among the most famous classical pieces of all time. . And, nevertheless, Sergei Rachamninov, since it is about him, had to put up with for many years that the defenders of the avant-garde called him cloying, ancient and superficial. The passage of time has put each one in his place, and Rachmaninov’s is among the greatest. Today marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.
Rachmaninov came into the world on March 20 (according to the Julian calendar, April 1 according to the Gregorian) of 1873 in the Russian province of Novgorod, in the bosom of an aristocratic family with great fondness for music. At the age of four he received his first lessons from him, which would later continue in St. Petersburg, where the family moved after being forced to sell almost all of his farms. In the years that followed, the young Rachmaninov met and admired Tchaikovsky, was a student of Taneiev and Arensky, and became a friend of Scriabin. At only 18 years old, he wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 (later he would revise it) and for a time he developed between composition and interpretation, since it was the concerts that allowed him to live.
Tchaikovsky’s death and, above all, the catastrophic premiere of his Symphony No. 1 – there are some who assure that the director, also a composer Glazunov, was drunk – plunged him into a depression that required medical treatment. We can never thank Nikolai Dahl enough for what he did for Rachmaninov: the first thing he wrote after the psychotherapy sessions was Piano Concerto No. 2. The premiere was received with a veritable apotheosis, and the piece has maintained that reception ever since. The success even served him to get the Orthodox Church to authorize his wedding with Natalia Satina, for which he needed a permit since they were cousins.
Until the Revolution of 1917, Rachmaninov was building a work that revolves mainly on the piano, although he also achieved notable successes with his Symphony No. 2, ‘The bells’ or ‘The island of the dead’. But the arrival of the Bolsheviks to power changed his life radically. Just a few days before the end of 1917 he left Russia, never to return. In the remaining quarter of a century of his life, he would be determined not to forget for a minute where he came from: Russian friends used to gather in his house, the servants he hired were Russian, the food was Russian, the drink was Russian. Russian. This was the case at his successive addresses in France, Switzerland and the United States.
Although on more than one occasion he assured that his inspiration had remained in his country, he continued composing. Of course, at a much slower pace than before but great works: there are the Piano Concerto No. 4, the Symphony No. 3, the ‘Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini’ and the ‘Symphonic Dances’, the last in his catalog and the only one who wrote entirely in the US, where he spent most of his life as a voluntary exile.
recordings
The celebrity achieved as a soloist, director and composer allowed him to lead a comfortable life. Not only did he have a wide range of services at his disposal – always Russian, as has been said – but he indulged in whims like renting a train carriage so that he could travel in it throughout the country. It was that same celebrity that led the producers of the movie ‘Dangerous Moonlight’ (‘That Night in Warsaw’) to ask him for a brief concert that the film’s protagonist, a pianist fleeing the war, had to perform. The Russian musician did not accept, and finally the score was written by Richard Addinsell, who sounds like… Rachmaninov.
Rachmaninov also benefited from the boom in record recordings. Already in the US, from the twenties and until just a few months before his death, he recorded his main works as a pianist. These are recordings that are still available and allow you to listen to his own reading of his scores with reasonable sound quality.
The popular impact of his music is enormous and it has also been used to accompany stories that have nothing to do with each other. If David Lean plays the Piano Concerto No. 2 in the most dramatic scenes of ‘Brief Encounter’ (that shot in which the protagonist thinks for a moment about throwing herself into the path of the train, in a manifest homage to ‘Anna Karenina’) , Billy Wilder uses exactly the same music in ‘Temptation lives above’ for the moment when Tom Ewell tries to seduce Marilyn Monroe. Great works fit in all contexts.
Rachmaninov died on March 28, 1943, on the verge of turning 70 and only a month and a half after having obtained American citizenship. It was this that prevented him from fulfilling his last wish: to be buried in what is perhaps the most beautiful cemetery in the world, that of the Novodevichy convent in Moscow, where the remains of the greats of Russian culture rest.
Four essential works
Sviatoslav Richter.
Piano Concerto No. 2
Leningrad Philharmonic. Kurt Sanderling, dir. Seal: Melody. Richter does a reading of absolute beauty
Marta Argerich
Piano Concerto No. 3
Orq. of Berlin Radio. Riccardo Chailly, dir. Label:Decca. Argerich is unbridled passion. An incendiary version
Joaquín Achucarro
Rhapsody Paganini
Orch. RTVE. Miguel A. Gomez Martinez, director Seal: RTVE. Achúcarro offers a reading of a highly refined lyricism
Valery Gergiev
Symphony No. 2
London Symphony Orchestra. Label: LSO. Few conductors understand Russian music like Gergiev
Piano Concerto No. 2. Svjatoslav richter. Leningrad Philharmonic. Kurt Sanderling, dir. Seal: Melody. Richter does a reading of absolute beauty