The slow movement is a set of variations on a theme derived from the first subject of the first movement, and includes a fantastic scherzando section, after the manner of the Second Concerto, but much more intricate and cleverly-worked. It is often pointed out that the clarinet tune in this section is the opening theme of the concerto, note for note, but in a different key, the major mode, and varied with much syncopation. What is not so generally realised is that the piano figuration which weaves a scintillating arabesque around the theme is itself an immensely speeded-up version of the theme as well. The finale is heroic and cossack-like, but contains a succession of tableaux which combine a variety of mood within the same basic tempo, and this variety can seem a little long if the soloist does not judge the movement accurately. There are many pianists who know the notes of this marvellous work, but few who have grasped the musical meaning of this difficult finale.
Shortly after the first New York performances, Rachmaninoff toured several states as conductor. The young Leopold Stokowski had been invited to return to the USA as conductor of the Cincinatti Orchestra (following a period of study in Europe with Nikisch, after leaving St. Bartholemew’s, and his debût as an orchestral conductor in Paris), and Rachmaninoff made his first appearance with Stokowski later in the tour. He appeared first with the Philadelphia Orchestra, commencing an association which was to last over thirty years. No one could forsee that Rachmaninoff’s first concert began a long relationship, or that 500 miles due West, in Cincinatti, Stokowski was to play a vital part in it.
Rachmaninoff in New York at the time of his first visit to the USA in 1909.
It was the Philadelphia Orchestra that gave the first American performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, and from the City of Brotherly Love Rachmaninoff travelled to Chicago where he directed the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in the Second Symphony and the American première of The Isle of the Dead, repeating the symphonic poem with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His tremendous musicianship as composer, conductor and pianist, impressed musicians everywhere, especially in Boston, where he was offered the conductorship. The recently-formed Boston Opera Company, a direct rival to the Metropolitan, which boasted several Russian principals from the Bolshoi among its newly-acquired artists, planned the United States première of Rachmaninoff’s The Miserly Knight the following year. But the thought of leaving Russia for good was unbearable. He played the Second Concerto with the Chicago Orchestra under Frederick Stock. His piano recitals were made up in large part of his own works.
Towards the end of the tour, the third performance of the Third Concerto took place in New York under Mahler, and later Rachmaninoff recalled the performance. The rehearsal was remarkable for Mahler’s tenacity:
… The rehearsal began at ten o’clock. I was to join it at eleven, and arrived in good time. But we did not begin work until twelve, when there was only half an hour left… we played and played … half an hour was long past, but Mahler did not pay the slightest attention to this fact.
Forty-five minutes later Mahler announced: ‘Now we will repeat the first movement’. My heart froze within me. I expected a dreadful row, or at least, a heated protest from the orchestra. This would certainly have happened with any other orchestra, but here I did not notice a single sign of displeasure. The musicians played the first movement with a keen or perhaps even closer application than the previous time. At last, we had finished. I went up to the conductor’s desk, and together we examined the score. The musicians in the back seats began quietly to pack up their instruments and to disappear. Mahler blew up: ‘What is the meaning of this?’
‘It is half-past one, Maestro.’
‘That makes no difference! As long as I’m sitting, no musician has a right to get up!’
It must have been a memorable performance, for Rachmaninoff admired Mahler greatly, particularly his insistence on rehearsing the orchestral accompaniment to the point of perfection. As both were great composers as well as great conductors, it was a rare meeting of musical minds: Rachmaninoff was very impressed with Mahler’s interpretation of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, which concluded the concert.
The tour was a complete artistic and financial success, so much so that he was offered, in addition to the Boston Symphony appointment, a more extensive tour the following season. But he was homesick and turned a deaf ear to all entreaties. Homesickness aside, he was immensely proud of the success he enjoyed everywhere on the tour; he was assured of a warm welcome should he decide to return. When it was over, in March, he returned to Russia, where he premièred the Third Concerto on April 4th/17th in Moscow, conducted by Eugene Plotnikov (which at one point was in jeopardy as the orchestral parts went astray en route from New York, but they turned up in time). Russian critics did not share the American view of the Concerto’s length: Grigor Prokofiev, writing in Russkiye Vedomosti, spoke of the ‘sharp and laconic form’.
Shortly after Rachmaninoff’s return Balakirev, founder of ‘The Five’ fifty years before, died aged 73. Two English performances in the spring would have delighted Sergei: on February 23rd, the student orchestra of the Royal College of Music gave the British première of The Isle of the Dead, conducted by Sir Charles Stanford, and Arthur Nikisch gave the Second Symphony for the first time in that country at the Queen’s Hall on May 19th under the patronage of the Royal Philharmonic Society. The concert took place on the eve of the funeral of King Edward VII who died on May 6th.
At one of the last concerts of his Russian season Rachmaninoff received a bouquet of white lilacs from a female admirer, who signed the accompanying card “The White Lilac Lady”. It is not unusual for artists to attract wellwishers, but this lady, whom he never met, sent a bouquet of white lilacs, whatever the season, to all his concerts, even those abroad. It was many years later that he learned her identity, through his sister-in-law, Sophia Satina. She was Madame Fekla Rousseau. Once the concerts in Russia were over Rachmaninoff rejoined his family for a well-earned holiday at Ivanovka. He had become owner of the estate, and he took his duties seriously. The farming and horse-riding, however, enabled him to relax completely with his wife and children after his strenuous concert-tours, and during the next few years he reinvested most of the residue from his concerts into developing the estate. Although the estate kept Rachmaninoff busier than usual (even though during the previous summers he had gradually come to take a large share in running it) this must have been a particularly happy time, for he managed to compose two works including his first extended sacred piece, a setting of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom Opus 31. This was written for large unaccompanied mixed choir, as musical instruments, even the organ, were forbidden in Russian churches under the strict rules of the Orthodox Church. In services the main choir was often echoed by a small choir placed apart, sometimes comprising solo singers. The antiphonal result produces, in Russian Orthodox Church music, a distinctive tone-quality and timbre which had already commended itself to non-believing composers. It is therefore not strange that Rachmaninoff should have composed this work even though, as on the occasion of his marriage, he was rather indifferent to Orthodox religion. The Liturgy is probably the most frequently celebrated in the Russian Orthodox Church, and shortly after it was completed (July 30th/August 12th) Rachmaninoff wrote to Morozov:
… I have finished only the Liturgy (to your great surprise). I have been thinking about the Liturgy for a long time and for a long time I was striving to write it. I started work on it somehow by chance and then suddenly became fascinated with it. And then I finished it very quickly. Not for a long time (since my work on Monnia Vanna) have I written anything with such pleasure. That is all …
Rachmaninoff’s reference to Monna Vanna is interesting: he evidently considered it still on the stocks, awaiting the appearance of Février’s setting (which was imminent). It was the only unfinished manuscript he took with him when he finally left Russia. Rachmaninoff was very busy at this time with his largest group of Preludes, the thirteen which comprise Opus 3
2. With them, he completed a set of twenty-four Preludes in each key (including the C-sharp minor and the ten of Opus 23). A subtle point occurs in the final Prelude, the D flat major. This is the enharmonic major of the first Prelude, the C-sharp minor, and the D-flat Prelude transforms material from the earlier piece. The Opus 32 set was written between August 23rd/September 10th/23rd, a remarkably short time. As three of them (Nos 5, 11 and 12) were written on the same day, Rachmaninoff’s inspiration was running high. He was also preparing for the forthcoming concert season, for earlier in the year, after his return from the United States, he accepted the position of conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic Concerts. This appointment lasted for three seasons, and his programmes were notable for their range of sympathies: his own music featured, naturally, but during his directorship he conducted works by Elgar, Debussy, Scriabin, Richard Strauss, Berlioz, Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and many other composers, including Glazunov, not letting the debâcle of the First Symphony’s premiere affect his programme-planning. He also toured Russia and abroad as a pianist, which had to be fitted in to his conducting duties. Starting with the 1910-11 season Rachmaninoff became, within three years, the leading conductor in Russia, until the rise to prominence of Serge Koussevitsky.
In the spring of 1911 Rachmaninoff heard the news from Vienna of the death of Gustav Mahler on May 18th. Mahler, who was 50, conducted his final New York Philharmonic concert on February 21st (his Fourth Symphony for the last time on January 18th) but by then it was clear the heart condition from which he suffered, since it was diagnosed in 1907, was so advanced that he had little time to live. Shortly before Mahler’s death, Rachmaninoff wrote a lively Polka de V.R. for piano (the V.R. being his father, Vasily Rachmaninoff). It is uncertain when his father wrote the tune, but it could have been one described by one of Sergei’s aunts, when she recalled Vasily “… spent hours playing the piano, not the well-known pieces, but something — God knows what … but I listened to the end.” The Polka is dated March 11th/24th, and dedicated to Leopold Godowsky. It was in the late summer that Rachmaninoff, as usual with his family at Ivanovka, began a new series of piano pieces, whose title, Etudes-Tableaux, indicates pictorial inspiration, although, replying to a question later in life, he said, “I do not believe in the artist disclosing too much of his images. Let them paint for themselves what they most suggest.” When Respighi orchestrated several Etudes-Tableaux in 1930, Rachmaninoff supplied him with programmes as a guide, but they seem farfetched, one of the later set allegedly depicting Little Red Riding Hood’s visit to Granny.
However, there is evidence to suggest Rachmaninoff composed these works to illustrate childhood scenes for his two young children to hear (certainly not to play! — they are among his most virtuosic pieces). Rachmaninoff wrote nine Etudes-Tableaux, but he was uncertain about their order: he withdrew three when they came to be published in 1914. Later he refashioned the original No. 4 as one of a second set, but the others remained unpublished until after his death. The original order is now restored, but there is some justification for believing the first publication is better: heard as a set of six, as originally published, there is greater cohesion than in the now usually heard set of eight.
Gustav Mahler, 1860-1911.
Shortly after completing these virtuoso studies, Rachmaninoff began another heavy season, including an English tour. On October 24th, 1911, he gave the English première of the Third Concerto in Liverpool, with the Philharmonic conducted by Simon Speelman. The first London performance came on November 7th, in the Queen’s Hall, at a Royal Philharmonic Society Concert, conducted by his friend and collaborator, Willem Mengelberg. Thirteen days later, in Munich, Bruno Walter conducted the posthumous première of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Madame Charles Cahlier and William Miller.
By then Rachmaninoff was back in Russia preparing his conducting season with the Moscow Philharmonic. Events had worsened in Russia with the assassination, on September 11th, of Prime Minister Stolypin, who had succeeded Witte as Prime Minister in 1906, sitting in a box in a theatre in Kiev. Reaction followed, and the agrarian reform which Stolypin instigated was effectively reduced by the poorly-led Dumas which followed. The Empress, concerned for her haemophiliac son, the Tsarevitch, became influenced more and more by the notorious Rasputin. She came to regard this uneducated self-seeker as God’s chosen instrument. Rasputin’s influence on the Royal Family, and through them, political life, was quite insidious, as the Tsar was anxious not to upset his wife who he felt had suffered enough over their son. Rasputin’s influence became a national scandal, and he came to epitomise all that was wrong with the ruling system.
Rachmaninoff had rather more pressing worries. Serge Koussevitsky had returned to Moscow following a successful European tour, during which he established himself as a conductor of great ability; also, through the music publishing house he founded, a shrewd entrepreneur. He established his own orchestra and announced a season of concerts. Koussevitsky’s programmes were generally more avant-garde than Rachmaninoff’s and he set himself up as the champion of modernism, especially promoting the music of Scriabin. Newspapers love public quarrels and although Rachmaninoff had no desire to become involved in one, his position made him an unwilling rival of Koussevitsky.
However, for those who were above this manufactured rivalry, the season brought consolation: a performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, with Rachmaninoff playing the solo and Alexander Siloti conducting, was one, and for Rachmaninoff the early months of 1912 saw an element enter his life which remained something of a mystery until after his death. A letter from a lady who cryptically signed herself “Re” caught his attention. He replied, and an acquaintance developed which lasted until 1917. The correspondence is unusual, for Rachmaninoff used his replies to the lady (whom he learned was a young poetess, Marietta Shaginian) as an outlet for a deeper and more contemplative train of thought than he used in correspondence with others.
Rachmaninoff was glad to have this outlet, as he was unwilling to drag his family into the conflicts and so disturb the home atmosphere. Marietta Shaginian was a remarkable young lady, for after the revolution in 1917, she became one of Russia’s most important authoresses. She not only befriended Rachmaninoff, but also the Medtners, and in her preface to the Rachmaninoff letters she published after his death, gave a pen-portrait of the musician she knew which shows her sympathies and literary skill. Their relationship was purely platonic, but Rachmaninoff was undoubtedly refreshed by the understanding support of the young lady at a particularly trying time. The portrait of her, painted in 1911 by Tatiana Hyppius, shows a young woman whose facial characteristics reflect her Armenian pedigree. Marietta Shaginian was a liberal-minded intellectual, like many of her generation and background (her father, Sergei Shaginian, was a professor at the Moscow University) and she had already published articles on art, literature and music. She recalled later:
… In February 1912, such a snow storm was raging that one felt lost even in the centre of the city. One felt as though one were swept on to the Russian Steppes, into Pushkin’s Snow Storm. It was during one of these February nights that I wrote a letter to Sergei Rachmaninoff, whom I did not know at the time. I sent my letter to catch him in St Petersburg, where he had gone for a concert, and I signed it “Re” to conceal my real name. Later on, even up to the last days of our friendship (which lasted from February 1912 to July 1917) I remained “Re” for him. He never called me anything else …
Marietta Shaginian — a portrait painted in 1911 by Tatiana Hyppius.
Rachmaninoff’s attention may well have been caught by the signature “Re” — in French, the musical note D, the key which symbolised so much in his music, including now, of course, the Third Concerto. Their correspondence quickly developed, and her literary knowledge soon proved invaluable to the composer, for by March he wrote asking for help in selecting texts for songs:
… So long as the piece is original and not translated and not longer than eight o
r twelve-sixteen lines at the maximum. And here is something else. The mood should be sad rather than happy. The light, happy, colours do not come easily to me …
Rachmaninoff was now troubled by the Russian Musical Society, of which he was Vice-President. A dispute over policy led to his resignation in support of Pressman, who had been dismissed. Although things were temporarily patched up, he resigned again, finally, on May 28th/June 10th, and free at last of this call on his time, he settled down to the composition of the songs. He wrote (or revised from earlier drafts) thirteen songs between June 4th/17th and June 19th/July 2nd. The fourteenth, the Vocalise, was written the previous April.
Politically, events moved with unrelenting certainty. The reactionary forces who replaced the assassinated Stolypin, found their policies failing disastrously: the people refused further oppression after having experienced a measure of liberty. In Irkutsk, Siberia, at the Lean goldmine, the miners came out on strike. As their strike had a direct effect on the economy, troops were called in to force them to return: 107 miners were shot dead on April 18th. Widespread strikes followed the massacre, and during the second conference of the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party in Prague, the Mensheviks were driven out and the Bolsheviks forged into a cohesive party.
The composer driving his first motor car, with his chauffeur as passenger, at Ivanovka
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