Something other than temporary loss of inspiration was troubling Rachmaninoff and causing concern to his relatives and friends. It was clear to the Satin family that medical help should be sought and he himself also felt the need for assistance. The spread of psychiatry in Europe had been rapid, and in 1900 Sigmund Freud was to publish his most important work, Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams). Rachmaninoff agreed to visit Dr Nikolai Dahl, who practiced in Moscow specialising in neurology and hypnosis. Dr Dahl was also a keen amateur musician, so this connection between the two men was undoubtedly helpful. He also knew of Rachmaninoff’s work and so had a point of immediate contact with his patient which another doctor might have spent weeks trying to establish.
For several months Rachmaninoff visited Dr Dahl. Later he recalled that he was subjected to simple but effective treatment, including a form of hypnosis. He was almost invariably half-asleep while Dr Dahl repeated over and over the suggestive phrases “You will begin to write your Concerto … you will work with great facility … the Concerto will be of excellent quality …” In effect Dr Dahl was stating, with infinitely more subtlety and understanding and with a more sympathetic emphasis, the same suggestion given as advice by Leo Tolstoy: “You must work”.
It is also clear from Rachmaninoff’s recollections of his treatment that he was concerned over his promise to the Royal Philharmonic Society for a new Concerto, for the idea for the work can hardly have come from Dr Dahl himself. Rachmaninoff was obviously worried about the lack of ideas for the work and his inability to write it which would mean breaking his promise to the Society.
Rachmaninoff and Chaliapin, c.1898.
After the treatment was over Rachmaninoff stayed with Chaliapin in the southern Crimea where the climate was noted for its therapeutic qualities. While there, Chaliapin received a telegram from the La Scala opera in Milan inviting him to sing the title role in Boito’s Mefistofele. At first he treated it as a joke, but his wife (who was Italian and had been a ballerina in Mamontov’s company) urged him to take it seriously. She persuaded him to answer, requesting that the message be repeated. The reply convinced him it was genuine but, as he knew no Italian and had little time to prepare the part, he sent off a message of acceptance, demanding exorbitant terms, secretly hoping the opera house would refuse. To his astonished delight his demands were met and so the Chaliapins, accompanied by Rachmaninoff, travelled to Varazze, a little resort on the way to San Remo. They stayed at a small villa, lived frugally (to enable Chaliapin to get his voice in trim and for financial reasons), and found the Italians friendly and hospitable. The local shopkeepers, when they discovered their visitors were preparing for a performance at La Scala, did everything to help. In this relaxed and congenial atmosphere, with all the new images and interests the first visit to a foreign country always brings, Rachmaninoff found his inspiration returning. He began several works and completed a setting, appropriately enough, of Count Tolstoy’s “Panteley the Healer” (Panteley-tselitel). The study of opera also rekindled his plans for Francesca da Rimini, and he composed the love-duet. His letters suggest it was some time before he settled down to composition, but it was a good sign to his friends in Russia to read in his correspondence that noise prevented him writing his music.
Detail from a portrait by Ivan Kramskoi of the celebrated Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
The two main works which he sketched out in Italy were completed on his return to Russia: the first was a Second Suite for two pianos, Opus 17, which he began in December 1900, and — much more importantly — the new Concerto.
Rachmaninoff’s illness and his travels with Chaliapin meant that Fred Gaisberg, the young American recording pioneer (the results of whose Philadelphia studio were already highly significant), was unable to get either Chaliapin or Rachmaninoff to record for him when he visited St Petersburg in March and April. Gaisberg visited the city following the recommendations of two early gramophone dealers there, but on arrival it was clear to him the agents had done nothing to line up possible recording artists, nor were they as well-connected as his employers had been led to believe. The recording team made some records of popular artists, but Chaliapin, who had just scored a great success in the capital in Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar, refused Gaisberg’s advances. Gaisberg recorded other singers from the Opera, and Taneyev was persuaded to record a short piano piece of his own. On his return from Russia Gaisberg would have been fascinated to learn of the plans afoot in Philadelphia to found a new symphony orchestra. This finally materialised on November 16th, when the Philadelphia Orchestra gave its first concert in the Academy of Music (itself constructed many years earlier from designs based on the interior of La Scala). The conductor was Fritz Scheel, and the soloist, in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B-flat minor, was Ossip Gabrilowitsch. The programme also included Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and an overture by Karl Goldmark, “In Spring”.
In England Sergei’s fame was growing: on October 4th, 1900, his First Piano Concerto had its British première with Evelyn Stuart, and the Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry J. Wood. For Wood, it was one of his first performances of Rachmaninoff’s music, with which he had a special empathy, encouraged by the Russian Princess Olga Ouroussoff whom he had recently married.
Rachmaninoff’s pleasure at the news of the Concerto was muted as he now thought it an unrepresentative work. This October, fired with ideas for the new Concerto which came to him in Italy, he worked at his old speed and the work was soon drafted. Or rather the last two movements were: the first movement followed later, and it was probably Siloti’s enthusiasm for the two completed movements on hearing Sergei play them through, that led to them being performed for the first time, in Moscow, on December 2nd/15th. This took place in the Hall of the Nobility, which stood in the corner of Okhotni Ryad Square, at that time a famous stall-market for vegetables, poultry and eggs. Sergei agreed to the work being played incomplete, for the first movement was not ready: Siloti was to conduct. As the time of the concert approached, Sergei caught a heavy cold, which threatened complications. As the Concerto was unfinished, Rachmaninoff possibly altered the opening of the slow movement. The Concerto is in C minor, but the slow movement is in E, so to make a suitable beginning, he could have altered the opening bars later, as they begin in the home key (C minor), and gently modulate to E. For some listeners, especially die-hard conservatives, the shock of hearing a work begin in a key other than the stated one would have been too much.
Sergei overcame the cold and the performance was tremendously successful. Friends and relatives including Princess Leivin and the Satin family were in the audience to see his triumph. In the slow movement, Sergei paid a musical compliment to another family who had helped him so much, the Skalons, by basing the piano’s gently-flowing cross-rhythm on the Romance he had written for the three sisters nine years before. And to Dr Dahl, the catalyst of the work, he paid a more subtle tribute: a curious characteristic of the concerto’s orchestration is the frequent use Rachmaninoff makes of the viola section — especially in the finale. As Dr Dahl was an accomplished viola-player he must have smiled to himself as he heard his favourite instrument being featured in the score.
The success of the performance spurred Rachmaninoff to finish the work on April 21st/May 4th 1901. In April he also completed the Second Suite for two pianos, like the First (the Fantasie-Tableaux), in four movements but without an explicit literary source. During the composition of the new Suite, Rachmaninoff showed it to Goldenweiser, the pianist and disciple of Tolstoy. As Goldenweiser was present at the visit of Rachmaninoff and Chaliapin to Tolstoy, and witnessed Rachmaninoff’s condition, he must have been surprised at Sergei’s new-found confidence. When the Suite was finished, Rachmaninoff dedicated it to Goldenweiser, and he inscribed the Concerto to Dr Dahl. Apart from the Suite and the Concerto, another work was running through Rachmaninoff’s mind. It was eight years since he had written chamber music, and he now planned a Sonata for Cello and Piano. During the summer
, he wrote the Sonata, and the character of the piece shows the confidence and flood of creative energy which consumed him.
Rachmaninoff — an informal study dating from about 1900.
By the autumn of 1901 Rachmaninoff had three new works ready. All were scheduled for performance in Moscow by the end of that year, but the first was the most important: the première of the entire Second Concerto, Opus 18, with Rachmaninoff as soloist with the orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, again under his cousin Alexander Siloti. It took place on October 27th/November 9th and the reception accorded the complete work was greater than that which attended the incomplete performance the previous December. Rachmaninoff had already in the First Symphony proved he could construct big works with a subtlety and integration that was equalled by few contemporaries. In the Second Concerto he demonstrated this capacity once again in a work which genuinely moved the audience. The eight opening chords of the slow movement were metamorphosed into the famous inception of eight piano chords which begin the Concerto, quietly insistent and, with internal counterpoint, growing to the home key and the first theme. The score is full of superb touches, frequently overlooked by those who are carried away (or put off) by the top layer of its rich melodic substance. In a word the Concerto is inspired, but Rachmaninoff was too good a composer not to let the beautiful creation be based on less than solid foundations. Since that first performance the Concerto has become one of the most popular and frequently-played in the repertory but it is curious that, with two recordings by Rachmaninoff, the work is usually played a good deal slower than the composer played it, or marked it.
A few weeks later, Rachmaninoff and Siloti collaborated in another première: the Second Suite, Opus 17. This, the first work completed after the return of his creative spark, shows his high flood of inspiration. The opening of the Second Suite in comparison with the First is confident and strong, full of nervous energy. The notes cascade with exhilarating speed, and this tingling sensation is carried over into the second movement, a scintillating Waltz. Even the Romance flows along and the final Tarentella is positively giddy. It is a dazzling work, easily superior to the First Suite. A deeper and more personal utterance is found in the Cello Sonata. Rachmaninoff and Siloti played the Suite on November 24th/December 7th with the dedicatee, Alexander Goldenweiser, in the audience. Eight days later Rachmaninoff and Brandukov premièred the Cello Sonata. Brandukov therefore took part in the first performances of all Rachmaninoff’s chamber works in which a cello is called for. It may be that revisions were made after the première as the score is dated December 12th, ten days after the first performance.
The new century (the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars increased to thirteen days on January 1st, 1901) also saw the ends and beginnings of new eras. In January Queen Victoria of Britain died and the Edwardian age ushered in by her 60-year-old son was vastly different. A few days later on January 27th Verdi died aged 87, having lived to see the success of his compatriot, Puccini, whose opera Tosca was premièred a year before. In America, the smouldering resentments of immigrant anarchists took tangible form when, on September 6th, President William McKinley, welcoming visitors to the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, was shot by Leon Czolgosz, a terrorist. He died eight days later and was succeeded as twenty-eighth President by Theodore Roosevelt. On November 16th in New York, the young Josef Hofmann (then 25), a colleague of Rachmaninoff, made his debût with the New York Philharmonic.
Josef Hofmann with the composer in the late 1890s.
Fred Gaisberg journeyed to Philadelphia in 1901 (his success in the early years of the gramophone industry led to him being stationed in Europe, where he played a major role in founding and developing the Gramophone Company, whose trademark was “His Master’s Voice”). On his arrival in Philadelphia he found that another early gramophone pioneer, Eldridge Johnson, had overcome serious technical and commercial difficuties and persuaded Emile Berliner to join forces with him. Johnson named the new company, following his success, the Victor company.
Rachmaninoff, apart from the success of his new works, had another reason to feel pleased. Since he arrived in Moscow at the age of 12 (he was now 29), his aunts and uncles had taken a kindly interest in his affairs and Rachmaninoff had been attracted by the pretty young girls who were his cousins. The affair with “A.L.” was long over and Rachmaninoff startled his relatives by declaring, early in 1902, his intention of marrying his cousin Natalia Satin. Apart from being pleasantly surprised at his announcement there was concern, for Rachmaninoff and Natalia were first cousins, and marriage between first cousins was forbidden under the laws of the Russian Orthodox Church. Furthermore both parties had to be regular churchgoers, and Rachmaninoff’s attendances had lapsed. Several weeks passed before the problems were resolved.
This photograph of the composer at the age of 29 was taken by the father of Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago.
Natalia had also graduated as a pianist from the Moscow Conservatory and her innate musicianship was an additional bond between the couple. Their cousin, Alexander Siloti, who conducted the first performance of the Second Concerto, now gave the première in St Petersburg on March 15th/28th, playing the solo part with Arthur Nikisch conducting. It was a tremendous success in the capital, and Siloti and Nikisch repeated the Concerto in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, before Siloti brought the Concerto to England on tour.
Before then the busy Siloti conducted another Rachmaninoff première. Rachmaninoff was eager to compose something for Chaliapin and by February 1902 he completed his first choral work, the Cantata “Spring” (Vesna), Opus 20, for baritone solo, chorus and orchestra. It tells of a peasant couple, the wife’s admission of infidelity so incensing her husband that he resolves to kill her. The first rays of the coming of Spring make him relent.
Rachmaninoff’s reputation now ensured that each new work would be performed quickly, and Siloti was able to première “Spring” on March 11th/24th. This was too soon for Chaliapin (the work was not dedicated to him, but to Nikita Morozov, a fellow-competitor in setting Aleko), so the solo was sung by Alexei Smirnoff. “Spring” is a neglected masterpiece — an imaginative evocation of time and place, typically Russian. The quality of musical invention is very high and Rachmaninoff was clearly deeply moved by the final message of the poem, which may well have had personal significance for him:
Love while it is yet possible to love,
Bear while it is yet possible to bear,
Forgive while it is yet possible to forgive,
And God will be your judge.
“Spring” is a dramatic work, a precursor of Rachmaninoff’s later operas, and Shostakovitch’s “Execution of Stepan Razin”, with which it could usefully be paired in concert.
Rachmaninoff’s marriage plans needed settling. Another aunt, Anna Trubnikova, spoke to Father Amphitheatrov who was attached to the Archanglesky Cathedral. Whilst bribery possibly played a part in overcoming the problems, Rachmaninoff later spoke of Father Amphitheatrov with genuine affection, in terms which do not suggest this. Because of the military connections of the Rachmaninoff family, it was possible for the marriage to take place in a garrison chapel rather than a normal church. The advantage of this was that the military chaplains were responsible to the General Staff of the Army and not to the ecclesiastical authorities, with the result that the strict doctrine of the Orthodox Church was by-passed. Consequently, Sergei and Natalia were married in the chapel of the Tavrichensky Regiment in the suburbs of Moscow, on April 29th/May 12th 1902. Alexander Siloti and Anatole Brandukov were chief witnesses and best men. The following day, after a reception which included many members of the large family, the newly-weds left for an extended honeymoon abroad.
The composer with his wife Natalia.
They visited Vienna and Venice and spent some time in Lucerne before returning home via Bayreuth, where they attended performances of The Flying Dutchman, the complete Ring, and Parsifal, and witnesse
d the Bayreuth debût of Emil Borgmann as Erik in Siegfried Wagner’s second season as manager. While staying in Lucerne, Sergei completed eleven songs (inspired by marriage as Schumann had been) to add to ‘Fate’, the song he wrote previously for Chaliapin, and all twelve were published as Opus 21. These songs, apart from ‘Fate’, which recalls the opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, are among the most intimate of Rachmaninoff’s songs: the dedications to several of the couple’s friends at this time of great personal happiness confirm this, but the piano part, more restrained and less florid than his previous set (Opus 14), underlines the poise which now entered his music. The third song, “Twilight” is dedicated to the designer of Mamontov’s Opera Company; the sixth (a Fragment from Alfred de Musset) to Princess Lieven, and the twelfth to his mother-in-law Varvara. The fifth, ‘Lilacs’, is the best of this set, but it bears no dedication.
Returning to Russia, the couple stayed at Ivanovka during the summer, where Rachmaninoff began a new composition. This was his first extended work for solo piano, the Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Opus 22. The theme is the famous twentieth Prelude in C minor. Rachmaninoff cleverly fuses sonata principle and variation technique in this work, by grouping the variations into a continuous structure which contains the character of a four-movement sonata.
Although Siloti scheduled the Second Concerto for performance in Birmingham and Manchester as well as London during the British tour he was to undertake during 1902, he was beaten to the post for the honour of giving the first British performance by Vladimir Sapellnikov, who premièred the Concerto in Queen’s Hall, London, on May 29th. Siloti gave the first performances in the other cities, when in Manchester he appeared in the old Free Trade Hall with the Hallé Orchestra under Hans Richter. The Hallé was possibly the best in Britain then, and the tour was very successful.
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