Composer of the Week: Rachmaninov

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Rachmaninov in America: In America: Homesick Sabbatical

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

In America: Homesick Sabbatical

Rachmaninov in America

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Rachmaninov in America, In America: Homesick Sabbatical

1926 was to be Rachmaninov’s year off for composing. Donald Macleod sees how it turned out

Rachmaninov, tired of his busy life as a pianist, decided to devote 1926 to composition. Donald Macleod looks at how it turned out.

Reluctant even to visit at first, and once there always more than a little homesick, this proudly Russian composer in fact lived in the United States of America for 25 years, from the end of the First World War until his death in 1943. His life there was principally that of a virtuoso performer, not a composer; and Rachmaninov gave recitals for presidents, recorded discs for Thomas Edison, and felt obliged to rattle off his “hated” Prelude in C sharp minor for concert audiences wherever he went.

By 1926, Rachmaninov was exhausted by his schedule as a pianist, and frustrated that he’d not written more music. He planned a year off, to write his fourth piano concerto – but still struggled to make space for composition, lamenting the lack of “quiet” he found stateside, and looking back with poignancy to his former life in Russia.

Etudes Tableaux, Op 33, Nos 2 and 7
Sergei Rachmaninov, piano

3 Russian Songs, Op 41
Russian State Symphony Orchestra
Valery Polyansky, conductor

Marche (Etudes Tableaux, orch. Respighi)
Minnesota Orchestra
Eiji Oue, conductor

Composer of the Week: Rachmaninov in America

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod follows Rachmaninov's career after he left Russia to settle in the US.

After the 1917 Revolution, Rachmaninov fled to the US where he settled and stayed for the rest of his life. Donald Macleod follows his progress.

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