{"id":799,"date":"2018-04-12T10:27:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T08:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicallradio.com\/articles\/?p=799"},"modified":"2022-03-25T23:21:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T22:21:15","slug":"%d1%81%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b3%d0%b5%d1%98-%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%85%d0%bc%d0%b0%d1%9a%d0%b8%d0%bd%d0%be%d0%b2-%d1%83-%d0%bf%d0%be%d1%82%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b7%d0%b8-%d0%b7%d0%b0-%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bc%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicallradio.com\/articles\/en_US\/2018\/04\/12\/%d1%81%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b3%d0%b5%d1%98-%d1%80%d0%b0%d1%85%d0%bc%d0%b0%d1%9a%d0%b8%d0%bd%d0%be%d0%b2-%d1%83-%d0%bf%d0%be%d1%82%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b7%d0%b8-%d0%b7%d0%b0-%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bc%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b8\/","title":{"rendered":"Sergei Rachmaninoff: In Search Of Homeland"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the famous conductor Valery Gergiev once said, there is no musician that could skip Sergei Rachmaninoff in his way of becoming a pianist. To this day this hasn\u2019t changed, and it\u2019s the same with classical music devotees \u2013 Rachmaninoff simply cannot be skipped.<\/p>\n

I would say, and it is not a subjective opinion, that alongside Tchaikovsky, Chopin and of course Mozart (we could add a few more names here) he is one of the most loved composers of today. It is a bit peculiar since composers from the beginning of the last century are not exactly highly positioned on the personal classical music \u201cranking lists\u2019\u2019. At the time when Stravinsky, Schoenberg and the other members of modernism wrote crucial pieces of music with the new, not particularly understandable atonal language causing riots of the audience at the premiers, Rachmaninoff remained \u201cretro\u2019\u2019. Loyal to his principles, in the manner of late romanticism, he wrote music the way he felt it \u2013 music must bring relief, rehabilitate the mind and the soul, reveal the emotions of the heart. He stayed consistent with his ideas until he left this world in 1943, just a few days before his 70th birthday.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was born on April the 1st in 1873. Although a look at his serious face brings awe, people who knew him say that he had a great sense of humor. He loved fast cars, in his youth he was passionately though platonically in love with a married woman of Gipsy blood (it\u2019s not by accident that Aleko<\/em> was inspired by Pushkin\u2019s Gypsies<\/em>, and he also devoted his 1st symphony to her), he was a great lover of nature, folklore and above all his homeland. From the moment he left it in 1917., he dreamed about it feeling like a ghost that \u201cwonders the world\u2019\u2019. And he did wonder a lot \u2013 through Stockholm, Dresden, New York, Paris, to Lucerne and finally Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Although he was not quite the type of a believer that goes to church on Sunday, as his niece Sofia Satina described him, religion meant a great deal to him, which is obvious by his opus of sacred works. The love for the sound of the church bells however, according to Satina, didn\u2019t have much to do with religion. It was more related to his \u201cRussian soul\u2019\u2019 which springs out from his music in every corner \u2013 passionate, dark, melancholic, tender, nostalgic, painful, furious\u2026. After all, Rachmaninoff considered that everything the composer carries inside, his whole experience, must be shown through music \u2013 love affairs, religion, homeland. He wrote one of the most famous piano pieces when he was 19, while still staying in his little family paradise of the village Ivanovka. The piece is\u00a0 Prelude\u00a0in C sharp minor<\/em>, exactly the one that simulates the ringing of the bells from the church nearby. He described the very creation of the composition as the force from which he couldn\u2019t set himself free, probably unaware that it will, transformed in massive and mighty chords, conquer the world soon.<\/p>\n