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Composer
Bios
Albeniz
Albinoni
Allegri
Arnold
Bach, J S
Barber
Bartok
Beethoven
Berlioz
Bizet
Brahms
Britten
Bruch
Bruckner
Chopin
Copland
Debussy
Delius
Dvorak
Elgar
Gershwin
Gibbons
Grieg
Handel
Haydn
Holst
Janacek
Liszt
Mahler
Mendelssohn
Messiaen
Monteverdi
Mozart
Offenbach
Part
Poulenc
Prokofiev
Puccini
Purcell
Rachmaninov
Ravel
Rossini
Saint-Saens
Scarlatti
Schubert
Schumann
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Strauss, Johann
Strauss, Richard
Stravinsky
Tchaikovsky
Vaughan_Williams
Verdi
Vivaldi
Wagner
Walton |
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Rachmaninov studied at the Moscow Conservatory
under Zverev (where Skriabin was a fellow pupil) and his cousin Ziloti for piano and Taneyev and Arensky for
composition. He graduated with distinction as both a pianist and composer (the opera Aleko, given at the
Bolshoi in 1893, was his diploma piece).
During the ensuing years he composed piano pieces, including his famous C sharp minor
Prelude, songs and orchestral works, but the disastrous première in 1897 of his Symphony no. 1
(poorly conducted by Glazunov) brought about a creative despair that was not dispelled until he sought medical help in 1900: then he quickly composed his Second Piano Concerto. Meanwhile he had set out on a new career as a conductor, appearing in Moscow and
London, later becoming conductor at the Bolshoi between 1904-6.
By this stage, and most particularly in Piano Concerto 2, the essentials of his art had been assembled: the command of the emotional gesture conceived as lyrical melody extended from small motifs, the concealment behind this of subtleties in orchestration and structure, the broad sweep of his lines and forms, the predominant melancholy and nostalgia, the loyalty to the finer Russian Romanticism inherited from Tchaikovsky and his teachers.
These things were not to change, and during the remaining years to the Revolution they provided him with the materials for a sizable output of operas liturgical music, orchestral works, piano pieces and songs, even though composition was generally restricted to periods of seclusion between concert engagements. In 1909 he made his first American tour as a pianist, for which he wrote the Piano Concerto no. 3.
Soon after the October Revolution he left Russia with his family for Scandinavia in 1918 they arrived in New York, where he mainly lived thereafter, though he spent periods in Paris (where he founded a publishing firm), Dresden and Switzerland. There was a period of creative silence until 1926 when he wrote the Piano Concerto no. 4, followed by only a handful of works over the next 15 years, even though all are on a large scale.
During this period, however, he was active as a pianist on both sides of the Atlantic (though never again in Russia). As a pianist he was famous for his precision, rhythmic drive, legato and clarity of texture and for the broad design of his performances.
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