rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff
(1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943)




This Russian composer, pianist, and conductor is considered one of the last romantic composers, who revived the form in the modern era.  Born to a wealthy aristocratic family, his natural abilities with the piano were revealed when he was five years old.  His grandfather arranged for lessons which lasted for a few years until his father was forced to sell their home because he had wasted the family fortune through drinking and gambling.  The family moved to a small apartment in Saint Petersburg, where his sister died from diphtheria.  He began studying at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and then transferred to the Moscow Conservatory where he distinguished himself as a composer and pianist. 


After the Russian Revolution, he escaped with his family in an open sled to Finland.  He then emigrated to the United States where he signed a contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company.  They set up a house where they entertained guests in the style of the old Russian aristocracy.  He performed so many concerts that he had little time to compose.  It wasn't until he built a new home in Switzerland that his muse returned.  He fell ill during a concert in the US and died of melanoma in Beverly Hills, California, just four days before his 70th birthday. 


Rachmaninoff would reveal:  "I have never been able to make up my mind as to what was my true calling -- that of composer, pianist, or conductor . . . I am constantly troubled by the misgiving that, in venturing into too many fields, I may have failed to make the best use of my life."





http://www.rachmaninoff.org/








The Philharmonic Society of London invited Rachmaninoff to conduct one of his pieces at Queen's Hall; but, rather than do his First Symphony, he decided to compose a new piece.  His writer's block led him to psychologist Nikolai Dahl, who used hypnosis to help him overcome his block.  The result was his most famous work, Piano Concerto No. 2, which he dedicated to Dahl. 




 Piano Concerto No. 3

Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini




Trio Elegiaque No. 1 in g minor was written in memory of the recently departed Tchaikovsky



Aleko was a one-act opera based on the poem The Gypsies byAlexander Pushkin, It was his final composition for the Conservatory of Moscow and earned him the Great Gold Medal. 




The first performance of  Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op.13 was so terrible that Rachmaninoff stopped composing for three years.  Conductor Alexander Glazunov is rumored to have been drunk during the performance. 

debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy 
(22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) 


This experimental French composer made a powerful impression on the world and ushered in the modern age of classical music.  Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and his family moved to Paris when he was very young.  At the age of ten, his musical proficiency led to his studying for eleven years at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was considered a rebel for his use of dissonance.  He spent summers travelling throughout Europe with his patroness patroness Nadezhda von Meck and received a scholarship to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, including a residency at the French Academy in Rome.  He found the strictness oppressive and longed to follow his own muse:  "I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one. But there is no help for it! I am too enamoured of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas!"  

"I wish to write down my musical dreams in a spirit of utter self-detachment. I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naïve candour of a child. No doubt, this simple musical grammar will jar on some people. It is bound to offend the partisans of deceit and artifice. I foresee that and rejoice at it. I shall do nothing to create adversaries, but neither shall I do anything to turn enmities into friendships. I must endeavour to be a great artist so that I may dare to be myself and suffer for my faith. Those who feel as I do will only appreciate me more. The others will shun and hate me. I shall make no effort to appease them. On that distant day — I trust it is still very far off — when I shall no longer be a cause of strife, I shall feel bitter self-reproach. For that odious hypocrisy which enables one to please all mankind will inevitably have prevailed in those last works."

"Music would take over at the point at which words become powerless, with the one and only object of expressing that which nothing but music could express. For this, I need a text by a poet who, resorting to discreet suggestion rather than full statement, will enable me to graft my dream upon his dream — who will give me plain human beings in a setting belonging to no particular period or country. ... Then I do not wish my music to drown the words, nor to delay the course of the action. I want no purely musical developments which are not called for inevitably by the text. In opera there is always too much singing. Music should be as swift and mobile as the words themselves."

"I believe the principle fault of the majority of writers and artists is having neither the will nor the courage to break with their successes, failing to seek new paths and give birth to new ideas. Most of them produce them twice, three, even four times. They have neither the courage nor the temerity to leave what is certain for what is uncertain. There is, however, no greater pleasure than going into the depth of oneself, setting one's whole being in motion and seeking for new and hidden treasures. What a joy to finde something new in oneself, something that surprises even ourselves, filling us with warmth."






'L’après-midi d’un faune' (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) is considered one of the first examples of modern classical music.  





'Clair de Lune' is the third movement of his 'Suite Bergamasque' which was first composed around 1890. 

 The title is from the poem by Paul Verlaine.







'La Mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre' (The Sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra)

"From dawn to midday on the sea" - very slowly (B minor)
"De l'aube à midi sur la mer" - très lent (si mineur)


"Play of the Waves" - allegro (C sharp minor)
"Jeux de vagues" - allegro (do dièse mineur)


"Dialogue of the wind and the sea"  - animated and tumultuous (C sharp minor)
"Dialogue du vent et de la mer" - animé et tumultueux (do dièse mineur)







'Children's Corner' (L. 113) is a six-movement suite for solo piano that was dedicated to his daughter, Claude-Emma ( "Chou-Chou").  The English titles were inspired by her English governess.

1.   Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum    

2.   Jimbo's Lullaby                     

3.  Serenade for the Doll     

4.  The Snow is Dancing        

5.  The Little Shepherd   

6.  Golliwogg's Cakewalk