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would accompany him on his flight in multiple hearings. Rachmaninoff was Prelude was performed in a group of five
1917. Notable among many other pieces unlucky in the critics of the first per- pieces around New Year’s of 1893 as
were songs, occasional pieces for the formance, especially César Cui of St. Opus 3, Morceaux de Fantaisie, dedicated
daughters of the Skalon family with Petersburg who decried the “evil impres- to Arensky. Tchaikovsky received a copy
whom he spent summers at Ivanovka, sion” of the work, its “sickly, perverse of the Morceaux in February and greatly
the Trio Élégiaque No. 1, a symphonic harmonization” and “complete absence liked it, especially the C sharp minor. On
poem or suite, Manfred, which is now of simplicity and naturalness, complete the publication of Op. 3 later that year,
lost, another symphonic poem, Prince absence of themes.”
Rachmaninoff was called “a man of great
Rostislav, which was not performed until Cui’s opinion bore weight, since he promise.”
1945 and a transcription for four hands was one of the “Mighty Handful” of He eventually got 500 rubles for
of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, which composers, including Rimsky-Korsakov Aleko, the Opus 2 cello pieces and the
the older composer disliked and which and Borodin, dedicated since the 1860’s songs of Opus 4, plus 200 more for the
had to be reworked by Rachmaninoff’s to creating a Russian nationalist school of five Morceaux Op. 3, which meant the
piano teacher, Siloti.
music. Such opinions may be attributed Prelude went for 50 rubles. Russia had
Also during this time he gave his first to tunnel vision and a vituperative pen, not signed the 1886 Berne Convention,
public concert and fell ill, after swim- yet perhaps Rachmaninoff should have thus Russian publishers did not have to
ming in the Matîr river in August 1891, seen it coming. The conductor, Alexan- pay royalties, and Rachmaninoff never
with a malaria-like fever which would der Glazunov, had been indifferent to got another cent for what was to become
periodically recur. His growing friend- the music, saying it had “a lot of feeling one of the most popular piano solo pieces
ship with a Skalon daughter, Natalia, but no sense.” Rehearsals went badly. of the 20
inspired a correspondence which lasted A former teacher, Tanaieff, described
the next twelve years.
the melodies as “flabby, colorless,” and
Because Siloti quit the Conservatory Rimsky-Korsakov did not find it at all
in 1891 after a change of director, Rach- agreeable. But Rachmaninoff had had
maninoff, now without his teacher, asked few musical failures in the years leading
to take the final piano examination a year up to this, and perhaps he did not wish
early. Though he had but three weeks to to believe the signs. If so, he had reason
prepare, he graduated with honors and to regret it. Cui added to his obtuse
then asked Arensky if he could take his comments by comparing the work to
composition exams early as well, in the “a symphony on the Seven Plagues of
spring of 1892.
Egypt,” meant for an audience in Hell.
This was agreed to but on condition Rachmaninoff took it very hard. He
that he do the work, which was, among put the manuscripts of the symphony
other things, to compose a symphony. aside, including a transcription for two
This he did, in two movements of pianos, and left them behind when he
which one has been lost. The other was fled Moscow in 1917. They were redis-
published in 1947 as the Youthful Symcovered in incomplete form and used
phony, modelled on the first movement to reconstruct the work for its second
of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. His performance, in Moscow on October 17,
final piece, the opera Aleko, was received 1945, nearly fifty years later.
with great warmth by Tchaikovsky, was However t he post-graduat ion
accepted and performed to acclaim by summer of 1892 held no sign of later
the Bolshoi Orchestra, and is still per- failure. Rachmaninoff found himself on
formed occasionally to this day. All told an estate northeast of Moscow, fighting
it was a period of remarkable accomplish- boredom, giving daily piano lessons to
ment, crowned with his diploma and the the son of the estate owner, and correct-
right, first instituted by Catherine the ing his first proofs for publication by
Great, to call himself “Free Artist.” Gutheil. He had a short relapse of fever.
At 19, Rachmaninoff could well con- In September he had still not received
sider that a composing career lay before payment from Gutheil, so he agreed to
him.
appear in concert at the Moscow Electri-
Looking back, we know that the next cal Exhibition. He played shorter pieces,
milestone of his career, in 1897, was to among them the first movement of
be a personal disaster whose repercus- Anton Rubinstein’s Concerto No. 1. There
sions lasted years. Yet Rachmaninoff’s was also a Prelude in C sharp minor which
First Symphony is a distinguished work, he had just written and which “aroused
well-made and exuberant, which repays enthusiasm,” according to a review. This
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century (although he was paid
for his later recordings of it for Edison,
Victor and Ampico).
We shall have to go rather quickly
over the accomplishments of the next
four years, but 1893 was exceptional. He
was housed that summer in a speciallybuilt
three-storey wooden tower in the
garden of the Lysikof estate, the result
of having told his music-loving hosts
that he liked to work outdoors. There
he composed the “sacred concerto” O
Mother of God Perpetually Praying and
the two-piano Op. 5 Fantaisie Tableaux,
later known as the Suite No. 1. He
described the latter to Natalia Skalon
as “a series of musical pictures.” He
also produced two Morceaux de Salon
Op. 6 and the orchestral poem The Rock,
which Tchaikovsky greatly approved
of and wished to conduct. However
Tchaikovsky died suddenly in October
1893, and The Rock’s first performance,
in 1896, ended up being conducted by
Alexander Glazunov.
With the death of Tchaikovsky,
Russian music had lost its greatest
living composer, and Rachmaninoff a
precious mentor and supporter. In the
great Romantic’s memory, he composed
the Trio Élégiaque No. 2, Op. 9. He was
not perfectly satisfied with this work,
more ambitious than the earlier one,
and revised it in 1906, 1917 and again
in 1932 (for a performance by Milstein,
Piatigorsky and Horowitz). His final
production of 1893 was the seven pieces
of the Op. 10 Morceaux de salon.
66 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine