Essential Rachmaninoff
Arguably the last of the great Russian romantics, Sergei Rachmaninoff composed music defined by brooding melodies, rich harmonies and lyrical grandeur. Explore some of his most beautiful, moving and memorable works with 'Essential Rachmaninoff'.
Read more…Rachmaninoff was born in 1873 and entered the St Petersburg Conservatoire just nine years later. Although he became celebrated as a virtuoso pianist, he began composing as a teenager. He produced his famous Prelude in C# minor aged 19 (and later regretted its popularity), while his opera 'Aleko' was praised by Tchaikovsky after its premiere the following year. The disastrous 1897 premiere of his First Symphony (the conductor, Alexander Glazunov, was reportedly drunk) was followed by a period of self-doubt and depression. He broke out of this with the help of hypnosis and went on to compose his Second Piano Concerto. Memorably employed as the soundtrack to David Lean's 1945 film 'Brief Encounter', it is a work whose memorable melodies, sweeping rhetoric and virtuosic demands make it for many the quintessential Romantic concerto. Although Rachmaninoff will forever be associated with his virtuoso piano works, he was also a master of many compositional genres, finding new refinement and sophistication in the works written after leaving Russia in 1917 to base himself in the United States.