The following month, March, saw Rachmaninoff back in Europe, first to London for some concerts and then to Paris and Senar for the summer relaxation. It was during this time at Senar that Fokine visited Rachmaninoff to discuss the production of a ballet based on the Paganini legend, which ascribed Paganini’s virtuosity to a pact with the Devil. The music would be the Paganini Rhapsody, in which the Dies Irae made a highly appropriate connection. The ballet, in fact, was Rachmaninoff’s own idea, as he outlined in a letter to Fokine on August 29th:
… About my Rhapsody I want to say that I shall be very happy if you will do something about it. Last night I was thinking about a possible subject, and here is what came into my head … Why not resurrect the legend about Paganini, who, for perfection in his art and for a woman, sold his soul to an evil spirit? All the variations which have the theme of the Dies Irae represent the evil spirit&
Rachmaninoff evidently had a very clear idea of the ballet’s story, for he went on to link the variations to a definite plot. Towards the end of the letter he enquired of Fokine, “… You are not going to laugh at me, are you?” Fokine, far from laughing at Rachmaninoff, accepted his ideas with enthusiasm.
Rachmaninoff and Toscanini
Rachmaninoff, along with countless other people, was deeply shocked to learn of the tragic death in hospital of George Gershwin on July 11th, 1937, at the age of thirty-eight.
RCA’s continued unwillingness to record Rachmaninoff led EMI scheduling recording sessions at their Abbey Road studios for the composer to conduct the Third Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, on September 2nd-4th, to be followed by further sessions for the First Concerto a few weeks later. Rachmaninoff was somewhat uncertain about these sessions, as it was some time since he had conducted and the Symphony had still not been played in England. Furthermore the First Concerto needed practice, and Rachmaninoff wrote to Vilshau that he could “… not ‘throw in’, as they ask me, the recording of my concerto”, even though EMI had scheduled the records for release during the winter, and despite the fact that he had included the Concerto in a London programme in April 1938. Finally the sessions were postponed, and never took place. On November 24th the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Goehr recorded Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto with Moiseiwitsch for EMI, just six days after the orchestra under Beecham had given the Third Symphony for the first time in Britain.
While at Senar during the summer, Rachmaninoff attended an open-air concert conducted by Toscanini at Triebschen, and invited the Maestro to be guest of honour at a dinner-party at Senar a few days later. Among the twenty-two guests were Toscanini and his wife, his daughter and son-in-law (Mr and Mrs Horowitz), and the violinist Nathan Milstein and his wife.
In October Rachmaninoff travelled again to the United States for thirty-two concerts in little over two months, finishing on December 20th. During this month he learned of the formation of the NBC Symphony Orchestra for Toscanini, following the conductor’s triumphant season in Salzburg and Bayreuth. The NBC Orchestra based in New York, although ostensibly formed for broadcasting and recording purposes, became a rival to the Philharmonic. In London, during February 1938, Egon Petri gave an unforgettable performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto under Sir Adrian Boult. The European tour Rachmaninoff undertook early in 1938 brought him once more to London, where he discussed plans for the Jubilee Concert to commemorate Sir Henry Wood’s fiftieth season as conductor. Rachmaninoff accepted the flattering invitation to appear as the soloist in the concert — the only foreign artist so honoured.
Rachmaninoff and Sir Henry Wood in 1938. (Sir Henry’s Jubilee)
During this tour, he played Beethoven’s First Concerto for the first time, and was to have conducted the Third Symphony and The Bells in Vienna in April, but Hitler’s invasion of Austria on March 11th caused the concert to be cancelled. It was a mixed blessing: Rachmaninoff returned to Paris, where he learned that Chaliapin was seriously ill in hospital. Rachmaninoff visited him daily, until Chaliapin’s death on April 11th. He was greatly distressed at the death of his friend for, among other things, he was a close link with pre-revolutionary Russia.
Rachmaninoff slightly revised the Third Symphony before several successful performances in England by Sir Henry Wood. These included a broadcast on April 3rd by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, which Rachmaninoff attended. An all-Rachmaninoff Promenade Concert followed in August, including the Prelude to The Miserly Knight. Rachmaninoff was in London two months later for Sir Henry’s Jubilee on October 5th: it was a glittering occasion, with the combined BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras. In the first half, Rachmaninoff played his Second Concerto. The BBC wanted to broadcast the concert complete, but Rachmaninoff was wary of live transmissions and the performance was not relayed. However, he joined Lady Wood and other guests in her box for the second half, where he heard the première of Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, with sixteen solo singers. The conductor Felix Weingartner (in London for extensive recording sessions with the LPO) was also in the box, and recalled that Rachmaninoff was so moved by the Vaughan Williams work he sat at the back of the box, his eyes filled with tears. Rachmaninoff told Sir Henry he had never before been so moved by music. The reception accorded Sir Henry, Rachmaninoff, and the musicians gathered to pay homage, was tumultuous and at least Rachmaninoff knew that in England his music — including the Third Symphony — was greatly admired. The following day he left for the United States. His old friend Moiseiwitsch, who attended the jubilee concert, met Rachmaninoff at this time and, following the success of Moiseiwitsch’s recording of the Second Concerto, EMI decided to issue a new recording of the Paganini Rhapsody. The popularity of Rachmaninoff’s music meant there was a market for a cheaper version, and Moiseiwitsch recorded a stunning performance on December 5th, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Basil Cameron.
Following the American part of his tour Rachmaninoff returned to England early in 1939 for more concerts, including a Queen’s Hall recital on March 11th of tremendous stature and authority. As it turned out, this was his last appearance in England. He was back in Senar in April, and as a result of an accident was unfortunately unable to visit London to attend the première of Fokine’s ballet Paganini. Rachmaninoff had slipped and fallen heavily at home, and was shaken and lame for several weeks. The première at Covent Garden on June 30th 1939 was a tremendous success. Antal Dorati conducted and Eric Harrison was the solo pianist. By August, Rachmaninoff recovered sufficiently to appear at the Lucerne Festival where, on August 11th, he played Beethoven’s C major concerto and the Rhapsody, with Ansermet conducting. A mystery surrounds this concert, which proved to be Rachmaninoff’s last public engagement in Europe. It was scheduled to be broadcast and, despite Rachmaninoff’s refusal to grant permission, it is possible that a transmission was actually made. Two days later, Rachmaninoff and his wife left for Paris.
It was obvious to everyone in Europe that war was inevitable. In 1938 Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland went unchallenged by France and Britain at a series of meetings in Munich. A ‘Peace Declaration’ between England and Germany was brought back by the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. The partition of Czechoslovakia followed: on March 14th 1939, the Czechoslovak Republic was dissolved and the following day German troops began to occupy Bohemia and Moravia. It was clear that Hitler next had designs on Poland. As Britain and France both had treaties with Poland, German agression would inevitably trigger off another war.
In August 1939, against this background, Rachmaninoff decided to leave Europe for America, taking Irina and her daughter, but leaving Tatiana with her husband, Boris, and their six-year-old son, Alexander, in Paris. He never saw them again.
Rachmaninoff and his family sailed from Cherbourg on August 23rd for New York, the day before a ten-year non-agression treaty was signed in Moscow between the Soviet Union and Germany. A few days after Rachmaninoff arrived in America, Hitler used alleged border incid
ents as his justification to declare war on Poland. Two days later on September 3rd, their joint ultimatum having expired, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
1 In 1921, record sales in the USA topped 100,000,000 discs. In 1932 sales fell to less than 5,000,000.
10 Finale
The Dies Irae plainchant theme had always fascinated Rachmaninoff: it appears in all three of his symphonies, many solo piano works, The Isle of the Dead and the Paganini Rhapsody. In some ways, the success of the Rhapsody is all the more remarkable when one considers how the themes on which it is based had already been used. The Paganini theme had been chosen by earlier composers as a basis for variations,1 and the Dies Irae theme formed the basis, among others, for Liszt’s greatest work for piano and orchestra — the Totentanz, a set of variations on the old theme. Rachmaninoff admired Liszt’s Totentanz greatly, and when considering a new concerto to add to his repertoire, he chose it to open his new season in the United States. It was a hectic season, but the 66-year-old took it in his stride. The highlight was the ‘Rachmaninoff Cycle’ which the Philadelphia Orchestra gave under Ormandy, with Rachmaninoff participating, to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of his American debût. It formed a spectrum of his greatest orchestral music: the first three concertos and Paganini Rhapsody all with the composer as soloist, and with Ormandy conducting The Isle of the Dead and the Second Symphony. The final concert was conducted by Rachmaninoff himself: the Third Symphony and The Bells.
With Sophie Volkonsky, 1939.
This was too good for RCA to miss: here was a golden opportunity to capture the composer in two of the unrecorded concertos and the Symphony. On December 4th Charles O’Connell, then head of the Red Seal Classical Division of RCA, supervised the sessions which produced the First and Third Concertos. Both works were recorded in a single day, but Rachmaninoff and the orchestra remade several passages a few months later. Although Rachmaninoff made many recordings he was easily disturbed by studio distractions unconnected with music, including the warning buzzer from the recording director, or the starting light which followed. It made him so nervous that at one point he slammed his hands on the keyboard and said he could not play in such conditions. Ormandy and O’Connell between them worked out a secret warning system whereby the red light was placed on Ormandy’s right-hand side where Rachmaninoff could not see it, and three light signals replaced the buzzer. After that, one light gave the artists the signal to start playing. From then on, everything went well and Rachmaninoff’s composure was restored. A week later, Rachmaninoff conducted the orchestra in a recording of the Third Symphony — a performance shows how much was lost when Rachmaninoff withdrew from conducting. Here is no ‘composer-conductor’ but a real conductor, whose control and direction of the orchestra place him among the great. Recorded the day following the final concert in the cycle, it is a tragedy Rachmaninoff did not also record The Bells, but the recording of the Symphony is so remarkable that Rachmaninoff’s interpretation is annotated in the published score. The composer made a tiny cut of two bars in the first movement, and altered the metrical shape of the second subject. Conductors should not be so slavish as to copy these changes parrot-fashion: they should be guided by Rachmaninoff’s emphasis, but it is a pity his example is often ignored. It is not true, as the score claims, that Rachmaninoff was present when Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra first recorded the Symphony for CBS: Rachmaninoff had been dead for over ten years when that recording was made.
Eugene Ormandy Photo: RCA.
In rehearsal with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, 1939.
Apart from the concern over the progress of the war in Europe, this was a happy time for Rachmaninoff. The great series of recordings had gone well and the ‘Rachmaninoff Cycle’ had been highly successful. During the season which, on February 24th 1940, included remaking parts of the first movement and the whole of the finale of the First Concerto, and parts of the second movement and finale of the Third, Rachmaninoff also undertook the revision of several of the shorter early pieces: the second of the Moments Musicaux Opus 16 (on February 5th); the Mélodie in E and the Serenade in E flat major, both from Opus 3 (February 26th), and on March 3rd, the Humoresque in G major Opus 10 No 5. On March 18th, Rachmaninoff was back in the recording studios, as a solo pianist for the first time in over four years, to record the revised Moment Musical, four Preludes, two of the Opus 33 Etudes-Tableaux, as well as Daisies and the Oriental Sketch. Three weeks later, he recorded the Humoresque and the Mélodie.
The most remarkable of the 1939-40 recordings is that of the Third Concerto. It is unique, and totally unlike most performances one hears. It is ceaseless in its energy, constantly thrusting forward with an irresistible drive and purpose. Rachmaninoff treats the immense technical difficulties of the solo part almost with contempt in his fiery and eruptive reading. Not that it lacks sensitivity: far from it, for Rachmaninoff’s famous tone and flawless phrasing are there. The power, authority and tingling vitality of his performance constitute a master-class on how to play the work. What is more difficult to accept are the cuts. The finale has been fair game for almost every pianist since Rachmaninoff to cut at will, but the other movements are subjected to small, but important, cuts. Later generations accept this concerto complete; its unity and structure are appreciated more than when Rachmaninoff was alive. But Rachmaninoff himself insisted on making these excisions to tighten up the structure. This was much to RCA’s annoyance, for it meant an odd side; without cuts the music could easily have been accommodated in the playing time of the remaining side.
At the end of the season Rachmaninoff rented a summer home at Orchard Point, near Huntingdon on Long Island, New York. Horowitz had recorded Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with his father-in-law Toscanini for RCA on May 9th, and visited Rachmaninoff several times during the summer to discuss Rachmaninoff’s Second Sonata. Horowitz possessed both the original edition and the revised version, but felt the work was unsatisfactory in either form. Rachmaninoff agreed, and left it to Horowitz to prepare a new edition for his own use. But it was not until 1968, at Carnegie Hall, and appropriately, at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, that Horowitz recorded his own version.
In the new surroundings Rachmaninoff again turned to composition. Between September 22nd and October 29th he completed a large-scale orchestral work: the Symphonic Dances Opus 45 which, in gratitude, he dedicated to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, who immediately accepted the work for performance early in 1941. He already drafted the work for two pianos before the orchestral score, and in this two-piano form it is occasionally heard when it forms a fitting climax to Rachmaninoff’s four large-scale works for two pianos. Although Rachmaninoff missed the performances of the Paganini ballet the previous year in London, Fokine was then living close by in New York and Rachmaninoff entertained hopes for a choreographic treatment of the new work. The Symphonic Dances was the only work Rachmaninoff wrote completely in the United States, but he had to hurry to finish the orchestration as the 1940-41 season began before the score was finished. In August, he wrote to Eugene Ormandy:
… Last week I finished a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want to give first to you and your orchestra. It is called ‘Fantastic Dances’. I shall now begin the orchestration. Unfortunately my concert tour begins on October 14th. I have a great deal of practice to do and I don’t know whether I shall be able to finish the orchestration before November.
I should be very glad if, upon your return, you would drop over to our place. I should like to play the piece for you. We are staying at the Honeyman Estate, Huntingdon, Long Island, and only forty miles from New York, so that you can easily reach us …
Ormandy, delighted at the news, met Rachmaninoff and invited him to the rehearsals, during which he addressed the orchestra:
… When I was a young man, I idolised Chaliapin. He was my ideal, and when I thought of composition I thought of song and Chaliapin. Now he is gone. Today, when I think of composing
, my thoughts turn to you, the greatest orchestra in the world. For that reason I dedicate this, my newest composition, to the members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and to your conductor, Eugene Ormandy …
The orchestra under Ormandy gave the first performance on January 3rd, 1941. The reception, as for the Third Symphony, was lukewarm. For the critics it was all too easy: they thought they had heard it all before. They had not: this last work of Rachmaninoff’s is a new and vibrant voice in his music, expressed in a truly symphonic manner as almost to deserve the title of Fourth Symphony. In this work, the Dies Irae is again present, but in the coda, marked ‘Alleluia’, the Dies Irae is swirled into silence by the virile and invigorating resolution: D minor, the ultimate tonality for this composer, triumphs over all in the hectic, tumultuous and life-asserting closing pages. The orchestra is large and the work contains passing influences of big band jazz. The music swaggers, supreme in its self-confidence and burning with a fierce inner light. This is manifestly not music by a tired composer who had written himself out: to see the effect this exhilarating music has on audiences decades after it was written, is to witness an essential truth of this great musician’s work. This music is not a reflection of a bygone age, fashionably nostalgic, but an indestructible and inspiring musical statement.
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