Youth of Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rachmaninoff at age 10

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (1 April 1873 [O.S. 20 March] – 28 March 1943), Russian composer and pianist, lived through tumultuous times. Born into an aristocratic, musical family in Semyonovo, near Veliky Novgorod, he was surrounded by music as a child and lived a comfortable life in Saint Petersburg. Moving into the house of his first official piano teacher, Nikolai Zverev, he transformed from an indulgent youth to an accomplished pianist. After completing his formal studies at the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Pyotr Tchaikovsky, he began to compose as a "Free Artist", although almost immediately he was faced with tribulation.

Upbringing and early influences

Rachmaninoff at the piano, in the early 1900s, before he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory

The Rachmaninoff family was a part of an "old aristocracy", where all of the attitude but none of the money remained. The family, of Tatar descent, had been in the service of the Russian tsars since the 16th century, and had strong musical and military leanings. The composer's father, Vasily Arkadyevich (1841–1916), an amateur pianist and army officer, married Lyubov Petrovna Butakova (1853–1929), gained five estates as a dowry, and had three boys and three girls. Sergei was born on 1 April 1873 at the estate of Semyonovo, near Great Novgorod in north-western Russia. When he was four, his mother gave him casual piano lessons, but it was his paternal grandfather, Arkady Alexandrovich, who brought Anna Ornatskaya, a teacher from Saint Petersburg, to teach Sergei in 1882. Ornatskaya remained for "two or three years", until Vasily had to auction off their home due his financial incompetence—the five estates had been reduced to one; he was described as "a wastrel, a compulsive gambler, a pathological liar, and a skirt chaser"—and they moved to a small flat in Saint Petersburg.

Ornatskaya returned to her home, and arranged for Sergei to study at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which he entered in 1883, at age ten. That year his sister Sofia died of diphtheria, and his feckless father left the family, with their approval, for Moscow. Sergei's maternal grandmother stepped in to help raise the children, especially focusing on their spiritual life. She regularly took Sergei to Russian Orthodox services, where he was first exposed to the liturgical chants and the church bells of the city, which would later permeate many of his compositions. Another importance musical influence was his sister Yelena's involvement in the Bolshoi Theater. She was just about to join the company, being offered coaching and private lessons, but she fell ill and died of pernicious anemia at the age of 18. As a respite from this tragedy, grandmother Butakova brought him to a farm retreat on the Volkhov River, where he had a boat and developed a love for rowing. Having been spoiled in this way by his grandmother, he became lazy and failed his general education classes, altering his report cards, in what Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov would later call a period of "purely Russian self-delusion and laziness."

In 1885, back at the Conservatory, Sergei played at important events often attended by Grand Duke Konstantin and other important people, but he failed his spring academic examinations and Ornatskaya notified his mother that his admission might be revoked. Lyubov consulted with her nephew (by marriage) Alexander Siloti, already an accomplished pianist studying under Franz Liszt. After appraising his cousin's pianism and listening skills, Siloti recommended that Sergei go to his own original teacher and disciplinarian, Nikolai Zverev.

Graduation

While living with the Satins, Rachmaninoff (standing, second from left) would vacation at Ivanovka, their summer house. He would marry his cousin Natalia Satina (sitting, second from left).

Neighboring families would come to visit, and Rachmaninoff would find his first romance in the Skalon family, with Vera, the youngest of three daughters. The mother would have none of that, and he was forbidden to write to her, so he corresponded with her older sister, Natalia, and from these letters much information about his early compositions can be extracted. In the spring of 1891, he took his final piano examination at the Moscow Conservatory and passed with honors. He moved to Ivanovka with Siloti, and composed some songs and began what would become his Piano Concerto No. 1 (Op. 1). During his final studies at the Conservatory he completed Youth Symphony, a one-movement symphonic piece, Prince Rostislav, a symphonic poem, and The Rock (Op. 7), a fantasia for orchestra.

He gave his first independent concert on 11 February 1892, premiering his Trio élégiaque No. 1, with violinist David Kreyn and cellist Anatoliy Brandukov. He performed the first movement of his first piano concerto on 29 March 1892 in an over-long concert consisting of entire works of most of the composition students at the Conservatory.

His final composition for the Conservatory was Aleko, a one-act opera based on the poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin, which Rachmaninoff completed while staying with his father in Moscow. It was first performed on 19 May 1892, and although he responded with a pessimistic, "the opera is sure to fail," it was so successful, the Bolshoi Theater agreed to produce it, starring Feodor Chaliapin. It gained him the Great Gold Medal, awarded only twice before (to Sergei Taneyev and Arseny Koreshchenko), and has since had many more productions than his later works, The Miserly Knight (Op. 24, 1904) and Francesca da Rimini (Op. 25, 1905). The Conservatory issued him a diploma on 29 May 1892, and now, at the age of 19, he could officially style himself "Free Artist."

Rachmaninoff continued to compose, publishing at this time his Six Songs (Op. 4) and Two Pieces (Op. 2). He spent the summer of 1892 on the estate of Ivan Konavalov, a rich landowner in the Kostroma Oblast, and moved back with the Satins in the Arbat District. His publisher was slow in paying, so Rachmaninoff took an engagement at the Moscow Electrical Exhibition, where he premiered his landmark Prelude in C-sharp minor (Op. 3, No. 2). This small piece, part of a set of five pieces called Morceaux de fantaisie, was received well, and is one of his most enduring pieces.

He spent the summer of 1893 in Lebedyn with some friends, where he composed Fantaisie-Tableaux (Suite No. 1, Op. 5) and his Morceaux de salon (Op. 10). At the summer's end, he moved back to Moscow, and at Sergei Taneyev's house discussed with Tchaikovsky the possibility of his conducting The Rock at its premiere. However, because it had to be premiered in Moscow, not Europe, where Tchaikovsky was touring, Vasily Safonov conducted it instead, and the two met soon after for Zverev's funeral. Rachmaninoff had a short excursion to conduct Aleko in Kiev, and on his return, received the news about Tchaikovsky's unexpected death on 6 November 1893. Almost immediately, on the same day, he began work on his Trio élégiaque No. 2, just as Tchaikovsky had quickly written his Trio in A minor after Nikolai Rubinstein's death.

External links

• (Russian) Senar - photographs, recordings, letters