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Birth of Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff, Russian Composer, Pianist, Conductor
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was born on March 20 (April 1), 1873 in a noble family. His father, Vasily Arkadyevich Rachmaninoff (1842-1916), came from the nobility of Tambov Governorate; his mother, Lyubov Petrovna, (nee Butakova; died in 1929), was the only daughter of Major General P. I. Butakov.
Opinions on where Sergei Rachmaninoff was born differ in various sources. The birthplace of the composer is attributed to Novgorod, St. Petersburg; there are three geographical points that can be the birthplace of the musician only within Tambov Region. Two places of birth are considered the most likely: Oneg estate near Novgorod and Semyonovo estate of Starorussky Uezd of Novgorod Governorate (now Novgorod District, Novgorod Region). The latter version is found in most biographical studies.
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff began studying music at the age of 4, and his first teacher was his mother, Lyubov Petrovna. The family had musical traditions: Rachmaninoff’s paternal grandfather, Arkady Alexandrovich Rachmaninoff (1808-1881), was a famous pianist in the middle of the 19th century. He studied piano with the Irish composer and the famous Russian teacher John Field.
In 1882, Sergei Vasilyevich entered the junior department of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. His studies went badly, and in 1885, on the advice of his cousin, a famous Moscow pianist, a student of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Franz Liszt, Alexander Siloti, he was transferred to the Moscow Conservatory in the piano class of Nikolai Sergeyevich Zverev. Classes were held in a private boarding house of Nikolai Zverev, which he kept in his house, where the students lived as well. During these years, Sergei Rachmaninoff met Anton Rubinstein and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. In 1891, he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory as a pianist, and in 1892 – as a composer.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky proposed to include the graduation work of the nineteen-year-old Rachmaninoff – the opera Aleko, based on Pushkin's poem The Gypsies – in the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater (1893). The rapid rise of the young musician’s career began. In 1893, he made his debut as a conductor in Kiev (Aleko), in 1895 – in Moscow (Capriccio on Gypsy Themes). Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was overwhelmed by the unsuccessful performance of Symphony No. 1 in 1897 in St. Petersburg, which was sharply criticized. In 1897-1898, at the invitation of Savva Ivanovich Mamontov, he became the 2nd conductor of the Russian Private Opera, the largest non-state opera enterprise in Russia. In 1899, he made his debut in Europe as a pianist and symphonic conductor with the performance of his compositions.
The period from 1900 to 1917 was extremely fruitful for the composer. Having felt his strength again, Sergei Rachmaninoff finished his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901, which restored him to the status of a famous Russian musician. In 1904, Rachmaninoff was called one of the best conductors of the Bolshoi Theater, and his interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades was the highest achievement of musical and performing art. Tours in Europe (1907-1914), the USA and Canada (1909-1910) brought Sergei Vasilyevich fame as one of the greatest pianists of our time. The last performance of the conductor in Russia was a concert at the Bolshoi Theater on March 25 (April 7), 1917, and the last performance of Rachmaninoff as a pianist in Russia took place on September 5 (18), 1917 in Yalta.
At the end of December 1917, Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff and his family arrived on tour in Stockholm. The period of emigration began, which lasted until the end of his life. “After leaving Russia, I lost the desire to compose. Having lost my homeland, I lost myself...”, the composer recalled. The first compositions in exile – Piano Concerto No. 4 and Three Russian Songs – were created by Rachmaninoff only 10 years later, in 1926-1927. From the end of 1918, he lived in the USA and continued to tour successfully with the performance of popular classical music. Since 1919, he gave charity concerts for the starving of Russia (1922), fellow emigrants, the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. From the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, he headed the private publishing house TAIR, created for charitable purposes and to promote Russian culture.
In 1926, he turned to composition again, completing his Piano Concerto No. 4 dedicated to the composer Nikolai Karlovich Medtner, whom he supported in emigration. The last major works include Variations on a Theme of Corelli for piano (1931), Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra (1934), Symphony No. 3 (1936), Symphonic Dances (1940). Rachmaninoff’s unsurpassed piano playing was recorded in the USA on gramophone records.
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff died on March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, USA. He is buried at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Lit.: Алексеев А. Д. С.В. Рахманинов: Жизнь и творческая деятельность. М., 1954; Федякин С. Рахманинов. М., 2014; Фраёнова О. В. Рахманинов С. В. // Большая российская энциклопедия.
Based on the Presidential Library's materials:
Исторические сведения о роде дворян Рахманиновых. Киев, 1895
ОР ГРМ Ф.34 Оп.1 Док.176. Рахманинов Сергей Васильевич, композитор. Письма Забеле-Врубель Надежде Ивановне. 22 марта 1902 года - 7 марта 1904 года (Available in the ERR)
РГИА Ф.497 Оп.5 Д.2636. Дело о дирижировании капельмейстером Рахманиновым в опере "Пиковая дама". 6 апреля 1911 г.–10 октября 1915 г. (Available in the ERR)