User:Michael Aurel/Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff –

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Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.

Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff began learning the piano at age four, and studied piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1892, having already written several compositions. In 1897, following the disastrous premiere of his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little until successful supportive therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. Rachmaninoff went on to become conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre for two years, before relocating to Dresden, Germany, in 1906, and he later embarked upon his first tour of the United States as a pianist in 1909.

Following the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family left Russia, settling in New York in 1918. Following this, he spent most of his time touring as a pianist through the US and Europe, and at his villa in Switzerland. During this time, Rachmaninoff's primary occupation was performing, and his compositional output decreased significantly, completing just six works through the rest of his life. By 1942, his declining health led him to move to Beverly Hills, California, where he died of melanoma in 1943.

Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he used his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument.

= Life and career =

Illness, move to California, and death: 1942–43
= Music =

Influences
A major influence on Rachmaninoff as a composer was Tchaikovsky. This influence can be seen throughout Rachmaninoff's early compositions, such as in his Youth Symphony, which is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's late symphonies, sections of his symphonic poem Prince Rostislav, which emulate The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet, and his youthful Three Nocturnes, the third of which contains a chordal section very similar to the opening of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. His first opera, Aleko shows the influence of Tchaikovsky in both its harmonies, and in its allusions and references to Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky was particularly influential on Rachmaninoff's melodic writing, though his melodies did not possess a range or length as extensive as Tchaikovsky's.

The influence of Anton Arensky, who taught Rachmaninoff for five years while he was at the Moscow Conservatory, can be seen in the composer's early compositions. His symphonic poem Prince Rostislav, for example, dedicated to Arensky, shows this influence, and a number of compositions from his student years may have been written as exercises for his teacher. According to biographer Barrie Martyn, the "obviously Russian character" and "Tchaikovskian lyricism" of Arensky's music were elements which were also part of Rachmaninoff's compositional style. Sergei Taneyev, Rachmaninoff's teacher in counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory, was also an influence on his early compositions, and Rachmaninoff would bring his compositions to Taneyev to gain his approval all the way up to 1915, the year in which Taneyev died. In his later style, the influence of Rimsky-Korsakov can be seen in the increasingly chromatic harmonies and thinner orchestration in Rachmaninoff's compositions from his Third Piano Concerto onwards.

Rachmaninoff's piano arrangements of Manfred and Sleeping Beauty?

Gypsy themes, Russian church music

Melody
Rachmaninoff is recognised as having possessed a talent for writing melodies.

Works
complained to medtner 1924 (see walsh)

(Revisions & Cuts section?)

Old
Rachmaninoff's reputation as a composer generated a variety of opinions before his music gained steady recognition around the world. The 1954 edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians notoriously dismissed Rachmaninoff's music as "monotonous in texture ... consist[ing] mainly of artificial and gushing tunes" and predicted that his popular success was "not likely to last". To this, Harold C. Schonberg, in his Lives of the Great Composers, responded: "It is one of the most outrageously snobbish and even stupid statements ever to be found in a work that is supposed to be an objective reference."

The Conservatoire Rachmaninoff in Paris, as well as streets in Veliky Novgorod (which is close to his birthplace) and Tambov, are named after the composer. In 1986, the Moscow Conservatory dedicated a concert hall on its premises to Rachmaninoff, designating the 252-seat auditorium Rachmaninoff Hall, and in 1999 the "Monument to Sergei Rachmaninoff" was installed in Moscow. A separate monument to Rachmaninoff was unveiled in Veliky Novgorod, near his birthplace, on 14 June 2009. The 2015 musical Preludes by Dave Malloy depicts Rachmaninoff's struggle with depression and writer's block.

A statue marked "Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert", designed and sculpted by Victor Bokarev, stands at the World's Fair Park in Knoxville, Tennessee, as a tribute to the composer. In Alexandria, Virginia in 2019, a Rachmaninoff concert performed by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra played to wide acclaim. Attendees were treated to a talk prior to the performance by Rachmaninoff's great-granddaughter, Natalie Wanamaker Javier, who joined Rachmaninoff scholar Francis Crociata and Library of Congress music specialist Kate Rivers on a panel of discussants about the composer and his contributions.

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During his lifetime

Following his death

After his death & Soviet Union

More recently

Legacy

= Pianist =

Rachmaninoff ranked among the finest pianists of his time, along with Leopold Godowsky, Ignaz Friedman, Moriz Rosenthal, Josef Lhévinne, Ferruccio Busoni, and Josef Hofmann, and he was famed for possessing a clean and virtuosic technique. His playing was marked by precision, rhythmic drive, notable use of staccato and the ability to maintain clarity when playing works with complex textures. Rachmaninoff applied these qualities in music by Chopin, including the B-flat minor Piano Sonata. Rachmaninoff's repertoire, excepting his own works, consisted mainly of standard 19th century virtuoso works plus music by Bach, Beethoven, Borodin, Debussy, Grieg, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Tchaikovsky.

The two pieces Rachmaninoff singled out for praise from Rubinstein's concerts became cornerstones for his own recital programs. The compositions were Beethoven's Appassionata and Chopin's Funeral March Sonata. He may have based his interpretation of the Chopin sonata on that of Rubinstein. Rachmaninoff biographer Barrie Martyn points out similarities between written accounts of Rubinstein's interpretation and Rachmaninoff's audio recording of the work.

Recordings
= Conductor =

= Other =
 * Threlfall & Norris?
 * Find Threlfall Rachmaninoff: His Life and Music