The Presidential Library marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff, a brilliant pianist and composer of the Silver Age, was born 150 years ago on April 1, 1873. Even despite the fact that after the October Revolution he emigrated to America and lived there for the last third of his life, his name is forever associated with Russian music, and his works are known and loved all over the world. By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, 2023 in Russia is dedicated to the celebration of the anniversary of our great compatriot.

The Presidential Library’s collections contain materials related to the creative activity of the composer, including documents, photographs and letters that help researchers fill in some blank spots in his biography.

Opinions about the exact birth of Sergei Vasilyevich differ in various sources. In particular, in the video lecture available on the portal Where Sergei Rachmaninoff was born? the well-known local historian, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Valery Demidov, notes that Novgorod, St. Petersburg is called the birthplace of the composer; only within Tambov Region are three geographical points that can be the birthplace of a musician. Demidov names two versions of Rachmaninoff's origin as the most probable: Onega (the Oneg estate near Novgorod) and Semenovskaya (the Semenovo estate in Novgorod province).

The hereditary Russian nobleman Sergei Rachmaninoff inherited and developed the talent of his grandfather, Arkady Alexandrovich. He studied with the well-known Russian teacher and composer John Field, even a few romances and piano pieces of his composition, published in the 18th century, have been preserved. The first teacher of music for the boy was his mother, Lyubov Petrovna, she also decided that her son should receive a musical education.

His parents' marriage broke up when Sergei was nine years old. The mother and children moved from Novgorod province to St. Petersburg. In the autumn of 1882, the boy entered the junior department of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. However, the young pianist preferred walking around the city to study. As a result, in the third year of study, he did not pass the exams and lost the opportunity to continue his studies for free.

An important role in his fate was played by a relative, the famous Moscow pianist Alexander Siloti. A student of P. I. Tchaikovsky and F. Liszt, in the 1880–1890s he was a piano professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Without much enthusiasm and only out of respect for his relatives, he agreed to audition the boy, but when it began, he instantly changed his mind. Siloti saw that the child was truly gifted, and advised him to send him to Moscow to the famous teacher Nikolai Zverev, who kept a private boarding school for talented students in his house.

Thus began a new, Moscow stage in the life of the future composer. According to the strict rules of the boarding school, the pupils had to study music for six hours a day. They were not allowed to leave the boarding house to see relatives, even during the holidays. Hard study paid off. At the age of thirteen, Rachmaninoff wrote the first nocturne and was introduced to a friend of his teacher, composer P. I. Tchaikovsky. However, Zverev insisted that Rachmaninoff's talent was primarily a pianist, not a composer. At the age of 15, with the permission of the teacher, the young man began to give private lessons. He sent the money he earned to his mother to educate his younger brother, part of it to his father. Rachmaninoff spent summers with his aunt, his father's sister Varvara Satina, on the Ivanovka estate, where he struck up friendly relations with his cousins.

Later, in 1902, friendship with one of the sisters, Natalia, develops into a romantic relationship. Young people get married and give birth to two daughters. As a dowry, Natalia Satina brought Rachmaninoff the same estate in Ivanovka, where Sergei spent the happy moments of his youth. He will come there every spring for several years in a row. It is there that he will write his most famous works. The last time Rachmaninoff visited Ivanovka was in the spring of 1917.  

But that was later. In the meantime, in 1888, Sergei Rachmaninoff continued his studies at the senior department of the Moscow Conservatory in the class of his benefactor Siloti. He, unlike Zverev, supported the young man's creative impulses: Rachmaninoff enthusiastically took up writing music. At this time, he composed the First Piano Concerto, romances and pieces for pianoforte, including the Prelude in C sharp minor, and soon became famous among the Moscow public. In 1888, P. I. Tchaikovsky gave him an A with three pluses at the exam.

Rachmaninoff graduated from the Moscow Conservatory ahead of schedule, in May 1892, with a gold medal and two specialties - pianist and composer. And again, Tchaikovsky highly appreciated his achievements: he proposed including the nineteen-year-old Rachmaninoff's graduation work - the opera Aleko, written based on Pushkin's poem The Gypsies - into the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater. The rapid rise of his Moscow career began. He is friends with Fyodor Chaliapin, adored by the Moscow public, becomes a conductor at the Bolshoi Theater. But St. Petersburg did not immediately accept the young genius. The premiere of his First Symphony in the capital on March 15, 1897 ended in failure. Some musicologists cite the mediocre work of the conductor Alexander Glazunov as the reasons for the failure, while others cite the innovative qualities of the music. In one of the reviews of the composer and music critic Caesar Cui, it was even written that if there was a conservatory in hell, Rachmaninoff would be the first student in it.

The incident upset the composer so much that he stopped writing music. But not for long. Rachmaninoff takes part in tours, makes new acquaintances. At one of the concerts in Yalta, during the intermission, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov approached Sergei Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninoff recalled the words of the great writer for the rest of his life: “You will be a great musician. You have a very significant face". On a tour organized by the Russian businessman and philanthropist Savva Mamontov, in the spring of 1900 in Crimea, Rachmaninoff met Stanislavsky, Kuprin, Mamin-Sibiryak and Gorky. Feeling the strength again, the composer completed the Second Piano Concerto in 1901, the creation of which marked the beginning of a new period of his work. This work returned to Rachmaninoff the status of a famous Russian musician: he again composes music, conducts performances organized by Siloti, visits Europe, America and Canada with concerts. In 1904 he was named one of the best conductors of the Bolshoi Theatre, and his interpretation of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades was the highest achievement of the musical and performing arts.

With The Queen of Spades, Rachmaninoff takes revenge on the St. Petersburg public. The Presidential Library features a digitized copy of the agreement between the composer and the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters (The case of conductor Rachmaninoff conducting in the opera The Queen of Spades), according to which Rachmaninoff assumes the obligation to conduct the opera The Queen of Spades at the Imperial Mariinsky Theater in the 1911-1912 season six times lady. One gets the feeling that St. Petersburg remembers the restlessness and optionality of the young Rachmaninoff, who failed the exam in the third grade, and the document is drawn up with all rigor: “During the validity of the contract, Mr. Rachmaninoff must exactly fulfill his duties as a bandmaster, appearing at the appointed days and hours for lessons , rehearsals and performances of the opera he conducts.

Shortly after the 1917 revolution, the composer was invited to perform at a concert in Stockholm. A new stage in his life began - emigration, which lasted until the end of his life. Rachmaninoff left Russia with his family, practically without a livelihood. In the abstract of the thesis of Ekaterina Kuznetsova Sergei Rachmaninoff in exile: socio-cultural and creative adaptation tells that our compatriot conquered the European public, and in 1918 he went to America, where he continued to give concerts. “After leaving Russia, I lost the desire to compose. Having lost my homeland, I lost myself...”, - the composer recalled. The first composition in exile - the Fourth Concerto and Russian Songs - he created only 10 years later, in 1926-1927. And outwardly, everything turned out well. In exile, Rachmaninoff expanded the range of his duties and activities, was engaged in social activities, charity and business. He found opportunities to support compatriots who had emigrated, helped Ivan Bunin with money, whom he met in pre-revolutionary Russia, sent parcels with food to starving colleagues of the young Country of Soviets. During the Great Patriotic War, he gave several concerts in the United States, and sent the earned money to the Red Army fund.

As a result of his multifaceted activities, he organically entered the new socio-cultural environment, at the same time acquired the status of a symbol of Russian culture in exile. Critics and listeners recognized him as one of the greatest pianists and conductors of the era. Two months before his death, already seriously ill, he took American citizenship so that his wife and daughters would avoid difficulties with the inheritance.

Rachmaninoff died on March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California, USA, three days before his 70th birthday.

Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:

Алеко [Изоматериал: электронный ресурс]: опера С. В. Рахманинова по поэме «Цыганы» А. С. Пушкина: художественный фильм: художественный руководитель постановки: Г. Рошал: производство ордена Ленина киностудии «Ленфильм», 1953 г.: [киноплакат] / художник Я. Руклевский. Санкт-Петербург: Президентская библиотека, 2016.

Композитор С. В. Рахманинов (1873-1943). Портрет. тип. «Октообер», источник электронной копии: Галерея Третьякова 1953.

Лекция Валерия Васильевича Демидова «Где родился С. В. Рахманинов?» / операторы: Владимир Ярош, Татьяна Дьяконова; организатор курса лекций: Василий Зварийчук; режиссер монтажа: Татьяна Дьяконова. СПб. Президентская библиотека им. Б. Н. Ельцина, 2011.

С. В. Рахманинов в эмиграции: социокультурная и творческая адаптация / Кузнецова Е.М. М., 2016.

Шлыков А. Музей-усадьба «Ивановка»: где рождалась музыка Сергея Рахманинова. Перед текстом: Открытка: Приют последнего русского романтика // Русский репортер. 2014, № 48 (376) (11-18 декабря). 2014. С. 76.

О праздновании 150-летия со дня рождения С. В. Рахманинова: Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 25.01.2020 г. № 62 / Российская Федерация. Президент (2012; В. В. Путин). 2020.

Рахманинов Сергей Васильевич, композитор. Письма Забеле-Врубель Надежде Ивановне.

Дело о дирижировании капельмейстером Рахманиновым в опере «Пиковая дама»