For those loyal readers who have been following over
the past week, we have been taking a brief survey of how great composers of the
past four hundred years have used the Spanish Renaissance dance tune La
Folia. Today we come to an end (although
there are literally dozens more Folias out there), with my favorite Folia by my
favorite composer, the truly great Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Rachmaninoff was born in Novgorod, Russia in 1873. His parents were amateur pianists and his
mother gave the young Sergei his first piano lessons at age 4. His natural talent was apparent, and his
grandfather arranged for a teacher to be brought to the family estate. A few years later, the family estate was lost
and Rachmaninoff moved to St. Petersburg with his mother. Through a connection with his cousin, the
noted pianist, Alexander Siloti, Rachmaninoff was placed with the famous piano
pedagogue, Nikolai Zverev, who was noted for his brutal practice
schedules. Rachmaninoff would later
acknowledge that his ability as a concert pianist was forged in Zverev’s atelier.
Rachmaninoff’s main ambition was to be a composer (he
was inspired by the music of Tchaikovsky.)
Rachmaninoff first studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and then
moved to the Moscow Imperial Conservatory.
There his met his idol, Tchaikovsky, and studied under Arensky and his
cousin, Siloti. While still a student,
Rachmaninoff composed his one-act opera, Aleko,
which attracted notice in the musical circles of Russia. His graduation piece was his first Piano
Concerto (which he later revised in 1923.)
After graduation, Rachmaninoff flourished as conductor,
pianist and composer. He premiered his
first symphony in 1897. The performance
was a disaster. Rachmaninoff’s wife
always claimed that the conductor (the Russian composer, Alexsandr Glazunov)
was drunk. The critics tore into it,
saying that if “there was a conservatory in hell, and the inmates thereof were
commissioned to write a symphony on the ten plagues of Egypt, they could not
have done a better job than Mr. Rachmaninoff.”
Rachmaninoff was devastated and withdrew from composing.
Finally, unable to shake off his melancholia, Rachmaninoff
consulted with an early psychologist (they were referred to as “alienists” in
that day) named Dahl, who used hypnosis to attempt to revive Rachmaninoff’s
confidence. Whatever he did, it worked,
and Rachmaninoff completed his Second Piano Concerto (which is dedicated to
Dahl), one of his most popular and enduring works. Immediately, masterpiece and after
masterpiece fell from his pen: the
Second Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, works for piano, voice and orchestra. Rachmaninoff was recognized in Russia and the
world as a premier composer. It was an
exciting time to be in Imperial Russia, and Rachmaninoff forges strong artistic
bonds with the famous Russian singer Feodor Chaliapin and the stage director,
Stanislavsky.
Suddenly without work and only three suitcases of
belongings, Rachmaninoff began to make a living as a concert pianist. He is one of the early greats who left a
substantial amount of recordings. He is
one he made of his famous G-Sharp Minor Prelude in 1921.
While Rachmaninoff was acclaimed worldwide as pianist,
his grueling concert schedule sharply curtailed his output as composer. The flood of compositions prior to 1917 soon
slowed to a trickle, but what sublime masterpieces! The Third Symphony, the Symphonic Dances, the
Fourth Piano Concerto and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini were all composed
during his exile. As the Second World
War engulfed Europe, Rachmaninoff relocated to the United States, where he
continued to concertize and compose.
(Recording was also a big part of Rachmaninoff’s activity – he recorded
all four of his Piano Concertos and the Third Symphony, among smaller works by
himself and others.) During the war, he
was one of the biggest contributors to Russian war relief. He was diagnosed in later 1942 with cancer
(a consequence of his life-long smoking habit).
He and his wife became citizens of the United States on February 1,
1943. He gave his last concert on
February 17th. He died on
March 28th, a few weeks short of his 70th birthday. He is buried in Valhalla, New York. On his death certificate, under occupation,
it said simply, “Composer.”
Rachmaninoff
was an incomparable genius, a first rate pianist, conductor and composer.
His music is technically and emotionally challenging for musicians, and easily
accessible to audiences. His contribution to La Folia occurred late in
his career. In 1931, he composed his Variations
on a Theme of Corelli (the theme, of course, being La Folia from Corelli’s
violin sonata), a set of piano variations. It is one of the greatest sets
of piano variations ever written, exploring not only the possibilities of its
theme, but the very resources of the piano itself. From the exquisitely
simple opening statement of the theme through variations that are at once
profound and simply moving, Rachmaninoff seems to sum up all the emotional
possibilities of his theme. This is one of those pieces of music that
you’ll want to listen to again and again, for each new hearing will reveal some
hidden facet of this masterpiece that will captivate you again. Enjoy!
BONUS: For you
loyal readers who have followed throughout our Folia journey, here’s an extra
treat. In researching for this series of
posts, I came across another Folia, this one by Henrico Albicastro (1660 – 1730).
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