{"id":3321,"date":"2024-11-13T21:40:10","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T02:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3321"},"modified":"2024-11-15T22:39:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-16T03:39:50","slug":"rachmaninoff-in-his-own-words-a-man-of-firm-identity-and-principle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2024\/11\/rachmaninoff-in-his-own-words-a-man-of-firm-identity-and-principle.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRachmaninoff In His Own Words\u201d \u2013 A Man of Firm Identity and Principle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A dear friend of mine died recently of a sudden heart attack. I discovered that the only music I found consoling was the slow movement of Rachmaninoff\u2019s Second Piano Concerto \u2013 the 1929 recording with the composer at the piano, accompanied by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am of course aware that many people find this piece maudlin. But Rachmaninoff the pianist is never maudlin. He projects sadness with implacable poise. His expressive inflections are never momentary inspirations; they are governed by a designated template of feeling. He projects a sovereign personality as admirable and imposing as any I can think of in the creative arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new book of Rachmaninoff\u2019s essays and interviews \u2013 Sergei Rachmaninoff In His Own Words<\/em><\/a>, edited by Geoffrey Norris \u2013 amplifies these observations. I even discovered Rachmaninoff writing about that 1929 recording. But nothing in the book stirred me as profoundly as its preamble. In 1932, Rachmaninoff was one of more than a hundred individuals invited to define \u201cmusic.\u201d He responded with seven lines in Russian. Translated, they read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is music? How can one define it?
Music is a calm moonlight night; a rustling of summer foliage; music is the distant peal of bells at eveningtide. Music is born only in the heart and it appeals only to the heart. It is love!
The Sister of music is Poetry and the Mother is Sorrow! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the articles and interviews here assembled, Rachmaninoff also testifies that he approaches music \u201cfrom within.\u201d He writes: \u201cMusic should bring relief.\u201d Conducting an orchestra, he experiences an \u201cinner calm\u201d; it reminds him of \u201cdriving a motorcar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1929 concerto recording<\/a> with Stokowski is a supreme collaboration.  Their exchanges are seamless, clairvoyant. Unlike the mix in many modern recordings, the piano is never an exaggerated presence \u2013 and Rachmaninoff delights in circulating under the orchestra, then mercurially arising. In the Adagio sostenuto <\/em>second movement, the famous Stokowski legato \u2013 a lava flow \u2013 is an ideal medium of expression. The coda to the first movement is also exceptional, with Stokowski\u2019s hyper-sensitive cellos inspiring Rachmaninoff\u2019s sonic imagination. In Rachmaninoff in his Own Words<\/em>, Stokowski\u2019s orchestra is repeatedly praised as nonpareil. Of the recording of his Second Concerto, Rachmaninoff says (in The<\/em> Gramophone<\/em>, April 1931):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo make records with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra is as thrilling an experience as any artist could desire. Unquestionably, they are the finest orchestral combination in the world: even the famous New York Philharmonic, which you heard in London under Toscanini last summer, must, I think, take second place. Only by working with the Philadelphians both as soloist and conductor, as has been my privilege, can one fully realise and appreciate their perfection of ensemble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecording my own [Second] Concerto with this orchestra was an unique event. Apart from the fact that I am the only pianist who has played with them for the gramophone, it is very rarely that an artist, whether as soloist or composer, is gratified by hearing his work accompanied and interpreted with so much sympathetic co-operation, such perfection of detail and balance between piano and orchestra. These discs, like all those made by the Philadelphians, were recorded in a concert hall, where we played exactly as though we were giving a public performance. Naturally, this method ensures the most realistic results, but in any case, no studio exists, even in America, that could accommodate an orchestra of a hundred and ten players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir efficiency is almost incredible. In England I hear constant complaints that your orchestras suffer always from under-rehearsal. The Philadelphia Orchestra, on the other hand, have attained such a standard of excellence that they produce the finest results with the minimum of preliminary work. Recently, I conducted their superb recording of my symphony poem, \u201cThe Isle of the Dead\u201d, now published in a Victor album of three records which play for about twenty-two minutes. After no more than two rehearsals the orchestra were ready for the microphone, and the entire work was completed in less than four hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two themes that pervade Rachmaninoff\u2019s public discourse are American music education, which he finds inadequate, and modern music, which he disdains. He praises American orchestras and audiences unstintingly. He calls New York City the \u201cmusical capital of the world.\u201d He appreciates the \u201cbold private initiative\u201d of the Boks, who fund the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Curtis Institute. But gifted American music students, he finds, are underserved. They cannot even afford to attend important concerts, because no tickets are set aside for them. And there is no national conservatory, no institutionalization of \u201cthe highest and the purest in music radiating from the center.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(In Russia — including Soviet Russia — an integrated musical community of performers and composers, orchestras and conservatories instilled tradition. Nothing of that sort ever emerged in the United States \u2013 although Jeannette Thurber, in founding her National Conservatory of Music and in 1892 naming Antonin Dvorak to lead it, had that in mind. Thurber\u2019s efforts to secure federal funding went nowhere. And Dvorak\u2019s complaints about American music education forecast Rachmaninoff\u2019s.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 1925\u00a0Musical Observer<\/em>\u00a0article, we learn something pertinent about Rachmaninoff\u2019s regard for another \u201cradiating center\u201d — Konstantin Stanislavsky\u2019s legendary Moscow Art Theatre:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRachmaninoff is very devoted to the theatre. In his youth he was a great admirer of Chekhov. He is a friend of the players of the Moscow Art Theatre. I remember what a stimulating sight I saw one afternoon in the Artists\u2019 room after a Rachmaninoff concert at Carnegie Hall, New York. There stood in a corner a huge glittering laurel wreath in green, gold and white, presented to the master pianist with the cordial greetings of the Moscow Art Theatre. The actors and actresses from the greatest theatre of the world led by stalwart and handsome Stanislavsky, almost surrounded him. Some of the men kissed him, and he them in real Russian style. They exchanged a few words in the tempo of a chant before an altar. Then for a minute or two they spoke not a word. The Moscow players simply looked at the great Moscow musician in reverent silence. Such devotion, such poise, such childlike sincerity, I never saw before, even on the stage of the Moscow Art Theatre. The actors surpassed themselves. Then they gently walked away one by one, like so many children, sad at parting from their playmate. The master\u2019s gaze was fixed on them, and he waved at the last actor who looked back as he went out of the door. I watched this bit of drama in life with breathless wonder, and I am not ashamed to admit that the sanctity of the scene moved me to tears. And from the quick movement of his eyelids I could notice that the master\u2019s eyes were not altogether dry either. I shall never forget this one act play of the Moscow Art Theatre, Rachmaninoff playing the part of the hero. It was more than a play, it was a sacrament.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps the most abiding motif in Sergei Rachmaninoff In His Own Words<\/em> is Rachmaninoff\u2019s contempt for musical modernism. For him, beauty in music is an absolute criterion, and music\u2019s supreme ingredient is melody. In this regard, he pursues a polemic whose best-known manifestation, in English-speaking countries, was once Constant Lambert\u2019s Music Ho \u2013 A Study of Music in Decline<\/em> (1934). Intolerant of Igor Stravinsky, Lambert\u2019s anoints Jean Sibelius his contemporary composer of choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Sibelius wrestled with modernism in his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, anxious and insecure, trying to catch up. Serge Prokofiev, too, strove to be a modernist in competition with Stravinsky. Then he called it quits, returning to Russia and his own Russian Romantic roots.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1930, Rachmaninoff revealingly recalled meeting Tchaikovsky \u201csome three years before he died. . . . Tchaikovsky at that time was already world-famous, and honoured by everybody, but he remained unspoiled. He was one of the most charming artists and men I ever met. He had an unequalled delicacy of mind. He was modest, as all really great people are, and simple, as very few are. (I met only one other man who at all resembled him, and that was [Anton] Chekhov.)\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging from his interviews and essays, Rachmaninoff was never tortured by modernism. He never wrestled with its challenge to tradition. A man of firm identity and principle, he simply waited it out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And his music prevails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related blogs: Rachmaninoff \u201cthe homesick composer\u201d<\/a>; Rachmaninoff\u2019s valedictory \u201cSymphonic Dances<\/a>.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A dear friend of mine died recently of a sudden heart attack. I discovered that the only music I found consoling was the slow movement of Rachmaninoff\u2019s Second Piano Concerto \u2013 the 1929 recording with the composer at the piano, accompanied by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I am of course aware that many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-Rz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3330,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions\/3330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}