Music

Sergei Rachmaninoff

1873–1943 · Russian (later American)

Late Romanticism

Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, conductor and one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. He kept writing lush late-Romantic music long after Modernism arrived, and his piano concertos are among the most popular in the repertoire. He left Russia after the 1917 Revolution and settled in the United States.

How to spot them

▸Huge, sweeping melodies over thick, rippling piano writing — big chords, long singing lines, and waves of strings in a dark, minor-key Russian romanticism
▸Bell-like piano chords: the opening of Piano Concerto No. 2 is a series of slow, tolling chords that grow louder, and the C-sharp minor Prelude opens with three crashing notes
▸The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini borrows the tune of Paganini's 24th Caprice; its famous 18th variation turns that theme upside down into a slow, swooning melody
▸Frequent quotation of the medieval 'Dies irae' chant, and a melancholy, nostalgic Russian flavour

Key works — listen

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 (1900–01)

Written after his recovery from depression; its music runs through David Lean's film Brief Encounter (1945)

Recording: Sergei Rachmaninoff · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 (1909)

The fearsomely difficult "Rach 3", written for his first American tour and central to the film Shine (1996)

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 (1934)

24 variations on Paganini's Caprice No. 24; the 18th variation is the famous romantic tune

Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2 (1892)

Early piano piece that made him famous, nicknamed "The Bells of Moscow"

Recording: Sergei Rachmaninoff · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 (1912 (revised 1915))

A song without words, sung on a single vowel; widely arranged for instruments

Recording: Sergei Rachmaninoff · CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (1906–07)

Hugely romantic symphony with a famous clarinet solo in its slow movement

Quick-fire facts

•The disastrous 1897 premiere of his Symphony No. 1, conducted by Glazunov, plunged him into depression and a creative block
•He dedicated Piano Concerto No. 2 to Nikolai Dahl, the physician whose hypnotherapy helped him recover
•He had famously huge hands, reputedly able to span a 13th on the keyboard
•He left Russia after the 1917 Revolution and never returned, living mainly in the United States and Switzerland
•He became an American citizen shortly before his death in Beverly Hills in 1943
•Eric Carmen's 1975 hit "All by Myself" is based on the slow movement of Piano Concerto No. 2
•His tone poem The Isle of the Dead was inspired by Arnold Böcklin's painting of the same name
•His All-Night Vigil (1915), for unaccompanied choir, is sometimes called his Vespers

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

Encyclopaedia Britannica — Sergey Rachmaninoff
Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press) — Rachmaninoff, Serge