Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2

Description

Sergey Rachmaninov(1873-1943)Symphony No. 2 in Eminor, Op. 27The Russian composer and pianist Sergey Rachmaninov was born in 1873,the son of aristocratic parents. His father's improvidence, however, led to achange in the fortunes of the family when increasing debts necessitated thesale of one estate after another, followed by removal to an apartment in StPetersburg. It was there that Rachmaninov, at the age of nine, entered theConservatory on a scholarship. The subsequent separation of his parents and hisown failure in general subject examinations brought about his move to theMoscow, where he was accepted as a pupil of Nikolay Zverev, a pupil of JohnField's pupil, Dubucque, and of Adolf von Henselt. Rachmaninov lodged inZverev's house, where the necessary discipline was instilled, providing himwith the basis of a subsequently formidable technique. In 1888 he entered theConservatory as a pupil of his cousin Alexander Ziloti, a former pupil ofZverev and later of Liszt. Rachmaninov's other teachers at the Conservatorywere Sergey Taneyev, a former pupil of Nikolay Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, withwhom he studied counterpoint, and Rimsky-Korsakov's former pupil Anton Arensky,Rachmaninov's techer for fugue, harmony and free composition. In Moscow, astime went on, he won considerable success, both as a performer and as acomposer, after graduating in the piano class of the Conservatory in 1891 andin composition the following year. The Revolution of 1917 brought many changes. While some musiciansremained in Russia, others chose temporary or permanent exile abroad.Rachmaninov took the latter course and thereafter found himself obliged to relyon his remarkable gifts as a pianist for the support of himself and his family,at the same time continuing his work as a conductor. Composition inevitably hadto take second place and it was principally as a pianist, one of the greatestof his time, that he became known to audiences. Concert-tours in America provedlucrative and he established a publishing enterprise in Paris, where he livedfor some time, before having a house built for himself and his family atHertenstein, near Lucerne. In 1939 he left Europe, finally settling at BeverlyHills, where he died in 1943. The first ofRachmaninov's three symphonies, written in 1895, had proved a greatdisappointment. His second attempt at the form, it was given its firstperformance two years later in St Petersburg, with the encouragement of thepublisher and now most effective patron of Russian music, Belyayev. The workwas conducted badly by Glazunov, allegedly drunk at the time, and was savagelyreviewed by Cesar Cui, who described it as a student attempt to depict in musicthe seven plagues of Egypt. This public failure, after earlier success,diverted Rachmaninov from composition and he took a position as conductor withthe Mamontov Opera, apparently unable to return to composition. It was asuccessful course of hypnotherapy with Dr Nikolay Dahl in the first months of1900 that broug