Sergei Rachmaninoff

Born into a musical family in 1873, Rachmaninoff studied at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1892 with compositions already behind him. The catastrophic premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in 1897 triggered a four-year depression during which he wrote almost nothing, until therapy unlocked Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. He conducted at the Bolshoi from 1904 to 1906, moved to Dresden, and launched his first American tour in 1909. After the Russian Revolution he left permanently, settling in New York in 1918 and spending the next decades touring as a concert pianist across the US and Europe, summering at his Swiss villa from 1932 onward. The performing life consumed him - he completed just six works after leaving Russia. In 1942, failing health brought him to Beverly Hills, where melanoma killed him in 1943.