Four pieces rachmaninoff biography

Sergei Rachmaninov (also spelled Rachmaninoff, –) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninov, it seemed, could do nothing right by most of his contemporary critics' and composers' standards. As a person, he appeared somewhat cold and aloof - Stravinsky once called him "a six-and-a-half foot tall scowl".

Life and Music
Sergei Rachmaninov was born on April 1st in Semyonovo, north-west Russia.

Rachmaninov's student years were nothing short of phenomenal. He consistently amazed his teachers with his jaw-dropping ability as a pianist and composer.
In at the age of just 18, he created a storm with his First Piano Concerto, an incredibly accomplished student work.

Music continued to flow from the young genius, including an apprentice opera, Aleko, in

Rachmaninov seemed unstoppable, composing a great run of pieces including the Cello Sonata and the Second Suite for Two Pianos, both in

However, his First Symphony from was roundly panned by critics, and caused the composer to enter a deep depression.

Rachmaninov's masterpiece was surely the Second Piano Concerto from It's subsequent use in the film Brief Encounter have made it a constant favourite.

With his phenomenal conducting skills, Rachmaninov was appointed Principal Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in and offered several major posts in America, most notably with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

He left Russia for good after the Russian revolution, first heading to Helsinki and finally ending up in the US.

Rachmaninov died of melanoma on 28 March , in Beverly Hills, four days before his 70th birthday.

Did you know?
In Rachmaninov's music was officially banned in the USSR as 'decadent' with the chilling warning: "This music [The Bells] is by a violent enemy of Soviet Russia: Rachmaninov".

Russian composer, pianist and conductor (–)

"Rachmaninoff" redirects here. For other uses, see Rachmaninoff (disambiguation).

Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (1 April&#;[O.S. 20 March]&#;&#;&#; 28 March ) was a Russian composer, virtuosopianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness, dense contrapuntal textures, and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he used his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument.

Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff began learning the piano at the age of four. He studied piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in , having already written several compositions. In , following the disastrous premiere of his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little, until supportive therapy allowed him to complete his well-received Piano Concerto No. 2 in Rachmaninoff went on to become conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre from &#;, and relocated to Dresden, Germany, in He later embarked upon his first tour of the United States as a pianist in

After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family left Russia permanently, settling in New York in Following this, he spent most of his time touring as a pianist through the US

Sergei Rachmaninov’s music is characterised by sweeping melodies, virtuosic pianism and heady orchestration. His Moscow training equipped him first and foremost to be a concert pianist but as a young composer he showed prodigious gifts, stunning his mentor Tchaikovsky with the C sharp minor Prelude and the one-act opera Aleko he composed while still in his teens. Tchaikovsky’s influence is reflected in the opera, based on Pushkin’s tale of an urban man seduced by a Carmen of the Steppes. The grand man of Russian music died prematurely in , leaving Rachmaninov bereft. The next few years of late adolescence were painful. An unhappy premiere for his First Symphony, conducted by an unstable Alexander Glazunov, is supposed to have triggered a deep depression cured only by the hypnosis of Dr Nikolai Dahl, though more recent research suggests that Dahl’s pretty daughter was more likely to have been the reason for Rachmaninov’s convalescence. Yet during that time, he worked hard at nurturing another talent as an opera conductor. Rachmaninov left behind only three much later recordings as a conductor, but they reveal a supreme flexibility and an unerring sense of structure. The First Symphony was one work he never conducted. The score was lost when he emigrated to the USA, but after his death the individual orchestral parts were found allowing the score to be put together again. It is, in its youthful extremes, as characteristic a work as any he composed. Nearly all of its material is derived from two themes: the second is a slightly exotic love melody; the first is an early example of Rachmaninov’s fascination with the world of Russian chant and the Latin hymn for the day of wrath, the ‘Dies Irae’. That hymn was to appear frequently in his work. As to the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, a key feature of their chants is the way that phrases move in narrow intervals, mostly stepwise, up and down. Many of Rachmaninov’s symphonic and concerto themes oper