Rachmaninoff was born in Semyonovo, near Novgorod in north-western Russia, into a noble family of Tatar descent, who had been in the service of the Russian tsars since the 16th century. His parents were both amateur pianists, and he had his first piano lessons with his mother on their family estate at Oneg; however, his parents noticed no outstanding talent in the youngster. Because of financial difficulties, the family moved to Saint Petersburg, where Rachmaninoff studied at the Conservatory before moving to Moscow. There, he studied piano under Nikolay Zverev and Alexander Siloti (who was his cousin and a former student of Franz Liszt). He also studied harmony under Anton Arensky, and counterpoint under Sergei Taneyev. It should be noted that, in his younger days, Rachmaninoff was found to be quite lazy, failing most of his classes and spending much of his time ice skating. It was the strict regime of the Zverev home (a place for many young musicians, including Scriabin) that instilled discipline in the boy.
Already, in his early years, he showed great skill in composition. While still a student, he wrote the one-act opera, Aleko (for which he was awarded a gold medal in composition), his first piano concerto, and a set of piano pieces, Morceaux de Fantaisie (Op. 3, 1892), including the popular and famous Prelude in C-sharp minor. (According to Francis Crociata’s liner notes to RCA's 10-CD set of Rachmaninoff’s recordings, the composer later became annoyed by the public’s fascination with this piece, composed when he was just nineteen years old. He would often tease an expectant audience by asking, "Oh, must I?" or claiming inability to remember anything else.) Rachmaninoff confided in Zverev his desire to compose more, requesting a private room where he could compose in silence, but Zverev saw him only as a pianist and severed his links with the boy. After the success of Aleko, however, Zverev welcomed him back as a composer and pianist. His first serious pieces for the piano were composed and performed as a student, at the age of thirteen, during his residence with Zverev. In 1892, at age nineteen, he completed his Piano Concerto No. 1 (Op. 1, 1891), which he revised in 1917.
Rachmaninoff, from a 1921 Victor advertisementRachmaninoff'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 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. 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 later suggested that Glazunov may have been drunk and, although this was never intimated by Rachmaninoff, it would not seem out of character.[3][4] The disastrous reception, coupled with his distress over the Eastern Orthodox Church's objection to his marrying his cousin, Natalia Satina, contributed to a period of severe depression.
He wrote little music over the following years, until he began a course of autosuggestive therapy with psychologist Nikolai Dahl, who himself was an amateur musician; Rachmaninoff quickly recovered his confidence. An important result of these sessions was the composition of the Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18, 1900–01), which was 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, and their 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 working as a composer and returning to the family estate of Ivanovka every summer.
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). This successful tour made him a popular figure in America.
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, which meant the end of the old Russia, Rachmaninoff with his wife and two daughters left Saint Petersburg for Stockholm on 22 December 1917. They never returned to his homeland again. 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 his inspiration.
The falloff in Rachmaninoff's output was dramatic. 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., he completed only six.
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-need 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.
His Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, today one of his best-known works, was written in 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. He fell ill during a concert tour in late 1942, and was subsequently diagnosed with advanced melanoma.
Rachmaninoff and his wife became American citizens on 1 February 1943. His last recital, given on 17 February 1943 at the University of Tennessee Alumni Gymnasium, prophetically featured Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat Minor, which contains the famous funeral march. A statue commemorating Rachmaninoff's last concert stands in the World's Fair Park in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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: "Rachmaninoff was really two people. He hated his own music and was usually unhappy about it when he performed or conducted it in public so that the public saw only this side of him. But, 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 a few days before his 70th birthday, and was interred on June 1 in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. In the final hours of his life, he insisted he could hear music playing somewhere nearby. After being repeatedly assured that was not the case, he declared: "Then it is in my head."
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