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Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 -1943 )

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Brilliant Russian composer, conductor and concert pianist who was one of the last great figures of Romanticism. His works had a great impact on the music of the 20th century and he was also one of the most astonishing piano players in the history of music. He is best known for his piano concertos No 2 and No 3, "Symphony No 2" and "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini".

Born in Russia to an aristocratic but also musical family, his talent was apparent from very early and he was accepted at the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 9. However, he lost interest in his music studies when he was a teen and a piano instructor at the Moscow Conservatory helped him by taking Rachmaninoff "under his wings" and giving him not only rigid training but also plenty of inspiration to become a pianist with an unparalleled technique and one of the most influential composers in the 20th century.

Rachmaninoff was tall, severe, moody, rarely smiled and was a very strict self-critic. He fell into a 3 year clinical depression following the negative criticism of his first piano concerto and then recovered through hypnotherapy and composed "Piano Concerto No 2", described by some as the greatest ever written. He later married his first cousin Natalya, whom she knew since childhood, although such incestuous marriage was forbidden by their religion. Following the Russian Revolution of 1918, he moved with his family to New York City, but since then, he composed a small number of original pieces, one of the reasons being that he needed to support his family, which meant giving up composing in favour of pursuing a career as a touring piano virtuoso.

His piano performances were characterised as "cosmic" and "overwhelming". He is known for having one of the largest pairs of hands in classical music (he could stretch over 12 piano keys from the tip of his little finger to the tip of his thumb), this is why some of his compositions are difficult for some pianists.

As a composer, Rachmaninoff was never attracted by the modernist musical trends of the early 20th century and was instead very attached to the 19th century romanticism. He had said “Melody is music and the foundation of all music. I do not appreciate composers who abandon melody and harmony for an orgy of noises and dissonances”. But while his music pleased the audiences and most of his compositions were enormously successful, music historians and critics were not impressed and considered his music as old-fashioned with "exacerbated" lyricism. As Virgil Thomson, an American composer, had once said "It is really extraordinary, after all, that a composer so famous should have enjoyed so little the esteem of his fellow composers".

Following his death in 1943, his legacy was almost "written-off". But in the most recent years, his star has been rising. The passing of time has helped the world to finally appreciate Rachmaninoff's genius in creating amazing expressive and haunting music.