Blog cm1 rachmaninov biography
Sergei Rachmaninoff Biography
The Brooding Russian Virtuoso
Sergei Rachmaninoff was a titan of early 20th century piano music, creating finger-breakingly difficult pieces and heart-meltingly dark, romantic music.
He was equally famous as a pianist and as a composer. I find Rachmaninoff's music sultry and passionate; most of it is very mysterious and gloomy - even old Rach himself said that he had trouble writing happy-sounding pieces!
His piano pieces are legendary.
Rachmaninov had bizarrely large hands, which meant he could cover about times the keyboard space a normal person could.
He also had an appetite for speed and a disregard for the safety of others.
This scary combination means that a fair amount of his solo piano music requires superhuman skill to perform.
Let's have a look at Rach's life
Life
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in in Novgorod, to an aristocratic family. His father drank and gambled away the family wealth, so the rest of the Rachmaninov clan had to run away when Sergei was young.
He was an enormously talented pianist as a child, and studied music and piano in St Petersburg and Moscow. But because everything came easily to him he got lazy and didn't bother studying. He ended up failing most of his classes.
While he was a student he wrote the opera Aleka and the infamous Prelude in C Sharp minor, which he would eventually get seriously annoyed by even though it was hugely popular.
Blog cm1 rachmaninov biography By , his declining health led to his relocation to Beverly Hills, California, and later became a US citizen a few weeks before he died of advanced melanoma in Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. After the outbreak of the First World War, his position as Music Inspector at the Noble Girls' High School put him on the team of government employees who prevented him from joining the army, however the composer made regular charitable donations for the war effort "Sergei Rachmaninoff". After a rift with his family in the more peaceful Crimea, Rachmaninov gave his last concert in Yalta on September 5, When Sergei Rachmaninoff was 24, his First Symphony was premiered. But it was a disaster, and completely unsuccessful. It may have been because Aleaxander Glazunov (the composer), was conducting it.Glazunov didn't actually like the piece so probably didn't try very hard to make it sound good.
Blog cm1 rachmaninov biography in english Top 10 Russian composers. However, the work had a disastrous start that very nearly killed off Rachmaninov's composing ambitions. Directed by ClassicalScores, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.Oh, and he might have been drunk as well
Anyway, Rachmaninov fell into a severe depression for three years. He didn't compose anything during this time. But after a course of pioneering psychological therapy, he recovered and went on to compose even greater works.
He turned out the Piano Concerto no 2, which had a successful premiere.
It boosted his Reputation as a composer.
He toured the USA in with his devilish third piano concerto, which made him super-popular over there.
Blog cm1 rachmaninov biography in spanish: The influence of symbolism on Latin American arts and music. At the age of four, he began piano and music lessons. The two were first cousins, which meant that the marriage was forbidden under Russian state and church law. After the catastrophic Russian Revolution in , Rachmaninov fled to America with his family , and began an extremely lucrative career giving concerts and making recordings.
After the catastrophic Russian Revolution in , Rachmaninov fled to America with his family, and began an extremely lucrative career giving concerts and making recordings.
But he was deeply homesick for his native land, which had been lost forever. So he recreated Russia in his house, employing Russian servants and celebrating Russian festivals and traditions.
His fame grew and grew in America, although his composing slowed hugely.
It was as if he had lost his inspiration. Instead he spent most of his time conducting and performing.
He died of skin cancer in , in Beverley Hills, California.
Click to explore the lives and music of other great Russian composers
Rachmaninoff's Lavish Music
Rachmaninov's music has a unique flavor and sound.He started out being influenced by Tchaikovsky's music, but soon created his own unique style full of lavish harmonies and emotional melodies.
Blog cm1 rachmaninov biography wikipedia Write a comment The textures and chords Rachmaninoff creates using just human voices is unbelievable, and the pieces are powerfully moving. He entered a depression lasting four years after the negative critical reaction to his first symphony. He based his interpretations on the theory that every piece of music has a "climax point".He was a master of complexity, and gave his music an almost modern feel.
Rachmaninov was also a skilled orchestrator, creating subtle textures and controlling instrumental combinations to stir the soul.
He liked to use widely-spaced chords to create bell-like sounds, both in his piano and orchestral music.
As a pianist he was famous for having a clean and almost impossibly precise sound, separating all the different textures in a piece so you could hear them individually.
At the same time he breathed a lyrical spirit into his melodies so they still affected listeners.
You might also like German composer Richard Wagner's music, which is similarly lush and brooding
Here's a list of some of Rachmaninov's famous pieces
- 2 sets of Etudes Tableaux.
As you'd expect from such a supremely skilled pianist, his etudes (studies) are a glimpse at the extreme realms of piano potential.
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- Sergei Rachmaninov: Biography of the composer - Salve Music
- Sergei Rachmaninov: Biography - Classic Cat
- Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This piece is from relatively late in Rach's life. It's a set of variations for piano and orchestra on a theme by Nicolo Paganini, the violin virtuoso.
The 18th Rhapsody is especially popular, with a gloriously sweeping melody.
- Piano Concerto No. 3. Worshipped by piano virtuosos, this concerto is probably one of the most difficult and extreme in existence.
- The Bells. This orchestral choral piece, using words from a poem by the macabre poet Edgar Allan Poe, was one of Rach's favorite of his own pieces.
The piece is grand, beautiful, and mournful all in one.
- Symphonic Dances.Rachmaninov Apart from the piece's innate beauty and heart-on-sleeve emotionalism, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. He used them most noticeably in his Vespers, but many of his melodies came from these chants "Sergei Rachmaninoff". Rachmaninov was also a skilled orchestrator, creating subtle textures and controlling instrumental combinations to stir the soul. Vocalise
Rachmaninoff's last piece, it shows us his highly advanced later style of composing.
- Vespers, a collection of deeply moving choral works based on Russian Orthodox church traditions. The textures and chords Rachmaninoff creates using just human voices is unbelievable, and the pieces are powerfully moving.
These are stamped with his trademark sound, and along with his concertos are primes examples of Rachmaninov's style of piano music.
Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninov
Lucky for us, Sergei Rachmaninoff was alive during the start of the era of recordings.
There's a fairly large collection of his performances, including many of his own compositions - we can hear how he intended them to sound!
So here's the virtuoso performing his own pieces
First, a typically Rachmaninov-esque brooding piece, the famous Prelude in C Sharp minor:
And secondly, the beautiful song Lilacs:
Finally, I had to slip in my favorite Sergei Rachmaninoff piece, the astonishing Prelude in B minor (op.
32 no. 10). In my mind it's difficult to find a more perfect, more moving, more dramatic piece:
More Information
Here's an interesting Rachmaninoff timeline and calendar.
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