Russian composer, pianist and conductor (1873–1943)
A pianist whose technical command was so absolute that his own compositions became the benchmark other players couldn't reach — and a composer who kept writing high Romantic music decades after the rest of Europe had moved on.
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, s…
Sourced, dated quotes from Sergei Rachmaninoff
I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the new.
A good conductor ought to be a good chauffeur; the qualities that make the one also make the other.
Especially dangerous on the musical front in the present class war.
I repeat what I said to you back in Russia: you are, in my opinion, the greatest composer of our time.
The virtuosos look to the students of the world to do their share in the education of the great musical public. Do not waste your time with music that is trite or ignoble.
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