Rachmaninov

by Robert Matthew-Walker

  Madame Boutakova, the maternal grandmother of Rachmaninoff.

  General Peter Boutakov was doubtless well pleased to give his blessing to the marriage of his only daughter Lubov to the young ex-army officer Vasily Rachmaninoff. The Rachmaninoff’s were wealthy, well-respected and had a strong military tradition. Lubov brought five estates as her dowry, and the young couple made one of them, Oneg, their main home. This was in the Novgorod district about twenty miles from Novgorod itself, almost one hundred miles south-west of St Petersburg. At first their marriage appeared happy enough: two daughters, Elena and Sophia, began their family, and their first son, Vladimir, was born soon afterwards.

  The musical life of Russia was growing, too. The success of the St Petersburg Conservatory led to the founding of a similar faculty in Moscow, in 1866, by Nicholas Rubinstein, Anton’s younger brother. The first professor appointed by Nicholas was the 26-year-old Tchaikovsky, a recent graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatory. Another founder-member of the faculty was the Rubinstein brother’s fellow-pupil of Alexander Dubuque, Nikolai Zverev. In terms of teaching standards, therefore, the new conservatory at Moscow was no different from that at St Petersburg, and the nationalist group of ‘The Five’1 (Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Cui) had further cause for complaint. The two conservatories became rivals in terms of civic pride: the traditional faction, the Muscovites, who always resented the usurping of Moscow as the old capital when St Petersburg was built, now had another weapon to set against the capital. By this time, however, the anti-establishment teachings of Balakirev and his followers were losing their force. Balakirev weakened under the strain of fighting the conservatories and the financial collapse of his own Free Music School, set up in opposition to Anton Rubinstein’s St Petersburg Conservatory. This institution was free in both senses: the pupils paid nothing, and the teaching was haphazard. By 1870 it was too much for Balakirev: he threw it all up and took a job on the railways in Warsaw, in the freight department.

  The unification of Germany in 1870, and the German invasion of France, spurred Alexander II to reform the Russian army, in which he took a strong interest. A St Petersburg gunsmith Gershovitz reported that he had invented a new automatic weapon which Alexander II much admired, and the Tsar bought the rights from the inventor. Gershovitz was doubly happy as his wife had given birth to a son, Morris, early in 1871.

  The composer’s parents, Vasily and Lubov Rachmaninoff.

  By the summer of 1872, Lubov was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her marriage to Vasily Rachmaninoff. Vasily, although inheriting some of Arkady’s characteristics, had evidently not inherited them all. He spent money quickly, and a lot of it, mainly on frivolous things. Another meaning of rachmany is ‘spendthrift’, and however lovable a rogue Vasily had become, he was still a rogue: he was forced to sell the estates, one by one, to pay for his scatter-brained pursuits.

  In that same summer of 1872, Lubov again became pregnant. Vasily’s exploits now meant that four of their five estates had been sold, leaving only Oneg remaining. With their fourth child due at the end of March there would be further demands on their resources. Their new baby, a second son, Sergei, was born at Oneg on March 20/April 2, 1873, and his birth was registered in the church of the village of Semeonovo a few miles from the estate.

  1 Although known as such, their nickname is more properly translated as ‘The Mighty Handful’.

  2 Childhood

  For Lubov and Vasily life began anew at Oneg. By most standards they were comparatively well-off. Their last remaining estate was comfortable and, if Vasily had learned the lessons of his profligacy, they could have enjoyed a happy life. It was not to be.

  Two further children were born to them: Varvara, who died when still a baby, and their last child, a third son, Arkady. For the rest of the decade their life was stable: Vasily restrained his former ways, and Oneg remained in his ownership. For the Buskin family, successful furriers in St Petersburg, it was also a happy time: their daughter, Rose, was born.

  For the time being the Rachmaninoff’s were reasonably secure. Lubov had her hands full with the children and when she wanted to punish them she made them sit under the piano. In later life Rachmaninoff remembered this distinctly, and his mother, a proficient pianist, encouraged Sergei’s musical bias. Lubov and Vasily would have heard with interest of the success of their nephew, Alexander Siloti, who had become a pupil of Nikolai Zverev at the Moscow Conservatory. Siloti attended the disastrous première of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in 1877, the year in which the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison patented his talking machine, the phonograph, soon to be known outside the U.S.A. as the gramophone.

  Alexander Siloti’s success as Zverev’s pupil probably spurred the Rachmaninoffs to encourage Sergei’s natural love of music. When he was six, they engaged Anna Ornatskaya, a graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatory, to give him piano lessons. During his grandfather’s last visit to Oneg, Sergei joined with old Arkady in improvised duets. One wonders what went through the old man’s mind as he sat next to his grandson. Perhaps he remembered his own lessons with John Field, sixty years before, or maybe he pondered the implications of a new war, which Alexander II declared against Turkey in 1877.

  The implications were entirely political: the nationalist movement overstepped its mark, and forced Germany to join Austria in an alliance in 1879. The seeds of future war between Russia and the Austrian-German axis were sown, and internal opposition to reactionary policies grew. A revolutionary society, called ‘Land and Liberty’ clandestinely condemned Alexander II to death in August 1879, and during the next twelve months he survived no fewer than four assassination attempts.

  An early study of the composer in the 1880’s.

  Through all this unrest and personal danger, Alexander II continued with his reforms, although without the enthusiasm which marked the beginning of his reign. His Silver Jubilee in 1880 was celebrated in suitable style and Borodin was one of several composers commissioned to write for the occasion. The result was In the Steppes of Central Asia, first performed on April 8th/21st, conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov. However, the terrorists meant business: ‘The People’s Will’, the guerilla faction of the ‘Land and Liberty’ society, planned an attack. Two revolutionaries pretending to be a married couple rented a cheese shop in a street where the Tsar frequently rode in his carriage. Working from the cellar of the shop they dug out under the street and laid a mine in the middle of the road. In case the route was changed, four further terrorists agreed to throw bombs. The route was indeed changed, on March 13th/26th 1881, and two bombs were thrown. The first killed a soldier and a butcher’s boy who was watching the procession. The Tsar was unhurt, but his carriage was damaged. He was about to mount another carriage when the second bomb was thrown: he was mortally wounded, and died several hours later. Earlier the same day he had signed a Decree approving the formation of a democratically-elected, law-making parliament.

  Tsar Alexander II.

  In the Nikolaevsky Military Hospital in the suburbs of St Petersburg, Mussorgsky had just been discharged following a pathetic attack induced by his chronic alcoholism. His friend, the painter Ilya Repin, was able to dry him out long enough to paint the last portrait of the composer, full of haunting dread and dissolution. Ten days later, on March 16th/29th, Mussorgsky was dead, one week after his forty-second birthday.

  For Vasily Rachmaninoff these were trying times. Once again he had failed to control his affairs and towards the end of 1881 it became clear that Oneg would have to be sold, and the family reduced to penury. The long, happy days on the beautiful estate were at an end, and they were obliged to move to St Petersburg where the residue from the sale of Oneg was enough to buy a small flat. Vladimir, the eldest son, lived away from home during the week, attending a military academy. Sergei, on the recommendation of his teacher Anna Ornatskaya, obtained a scholarship to the St Petersburg Conservatory. He also lived away from home for several weeks with his Aunt Maria Trubnikova. L
ater, Sergei studied with Anna Ornatskaya’s former teacher, Gustav Cross, but first fate dealt the family a tragic blow. No sooner had they settled in their small flat than a diphtheria epidemic struck St Petersburg: Vladimir, Sergei and their second eldest sister, Sophia, all went down with it. Vladimir and Sergei recovered, but Sophia died. Relations between Vasily and his wife now reached rock-bottom. In Lubov’s eyes, Vasily had much to answer for: her daughter would still be alive had they remained safely at Oneg, and to have seen their circumstances descend from comparative affluence to near-poverty in almost twenty years was insufferable. For Vasily, the humiliation of the results of his recklessness was too much: he abandoned his family, left the city, and never saw his wife again.

  In this black situation, Lubov showed her strength of character. She was virtually penniless, with three boys and a girl to bring up. Divorce was impossible (although not actually forbidden, the laws of the Russian Orthodox Church made it extremely difficult), and Vasily had nothing. The education of two boys seemed secure: Vladimir was at the academy, his fees paid out of public funds, and Sergei had his scholarship to the Conservatory. She turned to her mother for help. Madame Boutakova readily responded: she visited them frequently, travelling up from her home in Novgorod. Sergei was her favourite, and to console the children she bought a small farm at Borivoso, near Novgorod, where they spent some happy times not very different from the life they enjoyed at Oneg.

  In London on April 18th 1882, a son was born to the Irish wife of a Polish émigré cabinet-maker who had left his country to escape the harsh rule of Russian domination. The baby was named Leopold Anthony Stokowski.

  In Russia, Alexander III had quickly assumed the government. Just as his father differed from Nicholas II, so the new Tsar adopted a very changed course from that of his father. The assassination put an end to liberal reform and young revolutionaries were hunted down by the newly-strengthened secret police. An early example of the repressiveness of the new regime was the diktat in 1882 compelling Jews to confine themselves to fifteen selected provinces. Many left Russia as a result.

  During a visit to Paris in March 1881, Nicholas Rubinstein had died suddenly, and the following year the directors of the Moscow section of the Russian Imperial Musical Society decided to fund a scholarship in his memory, to enable the most brilliant graduates to study abroad. Sergei’s cousin, Alexander Siloti, on Zverev’s recommendation had been awarded the first scholarship. He travelled first to Leipzig for the music festival of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikverein, where he met the great pianist and composer with whom he was to study — Franz Liszt. Later, in Weimar, the lessons continued at Liszt’s home for many months.

  A view of St. Petersburg in the 1880’s taken from Vasilevski Island.

  However brilliantly Alexander Siloti’s career was developing, in the Rachmaninoff household Sergei revelled in a new freedom. Without a father-figure to exert a restraining hand (although it is doubtful if Vasily would have been a good influence, had he stayed), Sergei gave more time to games and indolence than was good for him. He frequently played truant, spending the ten kopecks for his car-fare on amusements in the skating-rink, or swimming, or playing a dangerous ‘chicken’ game with other boys of jumping on and off fast-moving trams.

  For three years Sergei enjoyed this idyllic existence: truancy from school, fun and games in the city, and blissful holidays at Borivoso whenever the occasion arose. He accompanied his grandmother to Orthodox Church services where the choral singing and sound of the church bells greatly impressed him.

  He was not the only child in his family to show musical gifts: during their time at St Petersburg, his elder sister Elena developed her outstanding contralto voice to the point where she considered a musical career. In later life Rachmaninoff recalled her with deep affection, for it was she who first introduced him to the music of Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky’s song, “None but the Lonely Heart”, is one that Rachmaninoff particularly remembered. He said Elena often accompanied herself on the piano, although when he played for her he cared less for the vocal line than the piano part.

  At the Conservatory, on those days he did attend, his progress was unremarkable: his lack of application meant matters were coming to a head. In his term reports he was able to forge marks, sometimes turning ‘1’ into a ‘4’ by adding a stroke to the figure (the marks ran upwards from one to five). His mother had little knowledge of his duplicity, but by the spring of 1885 the game was up. He failed all subjects and was threatened with expulsion.

  To Lubov, apart from the waste of Sergei’s talents which such a course meant, it also entailed finding a place at another school, which would be difficult. She turned to someone who might possibly help: her nephew Alexander Siloti who, now 21, had returned from his studies with Liszt and had begun to make his name as a pianist. Siloti started by enquiring at the Conservatory, but the Director, Davidov, had such a low opinion of the boy that Siloti was uncertain whether or not to hear him. Fortunately he relented and recognised Sergei’s talent. To Siloti, there was only one answer: the tomfoolery must stop and the boy subjected to firm discipline and study. The man to do it was Nikolai Zverev, his old teacher at the Moscow Conservatory.

  On Siloti’s recommendation Zverev agreed to accept Rachmaninoff as a pupil in the autumn of 1885. This meant the end of Rachmaninoff’s carefree youth, separation from his family, and a move to a strange city. He was cheered by the knowledge that Elena would also be in Moscow, for after study with the St Petersburg voice-trainer Ippolit Pryanishnikov she had successfully auditioned for the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow.

  Sergei spent his last summer holiday at Borivoso and Elena holidayed at the country home of their Uncle Gregor Pribïtkov in Voronezh. Just before she was to leave Elena contracted pernicious anaemia and died. She was seventeen.

  Sergei was heartbroken: not only had he lost his dear sister on the threshold of what might have been a great career, but he would also be even more lonely in Moscow. Sergei was twelve years old when he left Borivoso, kissed his grandmother good-bye and, carefully protecting the hundred roubles she had sewn into the lining of his gray jacket, caught the train for Moscow. His childhood had finally come to an end: now he was on his own.

  3 Conservatory Studies

  As the train pulled into the Kursk and Nizhni-Novgorod Station in the centre of Moscow, two miles East of the Kremlin, the city must have appeared to Sergei a very different place from St Petersburg. There to meet him was his aunt Julia, Alexander’s mother, for his first few days in Moscow were to be spent at her home.

  The sights and activity in the ill-paved streets of Moscow crowded in on his mind, with little time for regret. It was all too new, too different, too interesting a place for a young boy to mope, but no sooner had he arrived than he was taken to Nikolai Zverev, at whose apartment on Ruzheyni Pereulok he was to stay.

  At the time of Sergei’s first studies with him, Zverev was 53, but looked older. His apartment was large and he shared it with his sister Anna. The pupils who studied with Zverev lived in but there were never more than three at a time. They were chosen from the elite of the Conservatory pupils, not necessarily because they came from rich families: those pupils of Zverev who were from poor circumstances were taught and maintained by him free. His income came from those families who could afford to pay, and from his Conservatory fees.

  To Sergei, at home in a easy-going atmosphere, it must have seemed like a prison. He shared a large bedroom with the two other young pupils, Mikhail Pressman and Leonid Maksimov. The three boys shared two grand pianos and, apart from their lessons at the Conservatory, they each had to practise for three hours daily in the apartment. Although Zverev was frequently out, either at the Conservatory or visiting his many private pupils, often until ten in the evening, his sister Anna made sure the boys were kept hard at it. Practice began at six a.m. so they had to rise earlier. Zverev frequently enquired from the professors at the Conservatory as to his pupils progress in other subjects, and woe betide them if
they had been slack.

  Zverev’s authority over his pupils did not end there. He was concerned that they should also acquire the airs and graces of dignified living. After they had successfully completed their initial terms at the apartment Zverev ensured that they attended the latest plays, concerts, opera, and on occasion, the better restaurants. To Zverev, the social graces were an important part of his pupils’ education, and the visits made a welcome respite for the boys from the rigours at home. In addition to this care for the boys’ social education, Zverev frequently entertained important musicians and visiting artists at home. The boys were sometimes invited to these dinner parties, and after dinner they were required to play the piano for the distinguished guests. Apart from the experience these occasions afforded the boys of playing before an audience, the opportunity of meeting a whole succession of great artists, in a relaxed and pleasant setting, was invaluable. In no other way could Sergei have met such famous musicians as old Dubuque (who doubtless regaled the boys with stories of his meeting with Beethoven in 1823), Anton and Nicholas Rubinstein, the Tchaikovsky brothers (Peter and Modest), and his cousin Alexander who was already an important musician.

  Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894), one of whose pupils was Tchaikovsky, was a renowned virtuoso pianist. In this painting by L. Pasternak, Tolstoy can be clearly recognised among the circle of admirers.