A conservative who became an innovator – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/01/2023

Conductor’s seat

In the 1900s, Rachmaninoff began to perform as a conductor – first he was invited as a bandmaster by Mamontov’s private opera, and then by the Bolshoi Theater. In the Bolshoi, he worked for only two seasons, but during this time he managed to make a real revolution. Until that time, the conductor was located in the orchestra pit not where he is now, but at the very edge of the stage, in front of the prompter booth: the orchestra members saw him only from the back. It was Rachmaninov who, following the experience of Western theaters at the time, decided to place the conductor’s seat in the usual way. The singers protested, stating that they now did not see the conductor’s baton, but quickly reconciled.

Understanding Sacred Music

Rachmaninoff did not create a single multi-act opera, but he did leave two monumental choral cycles, of which his All-Night Vigil (1915) is best known. The consciousness of the Silver Age was often drawn, if not to religiosity as such, then at least to its ancient, primordial artistic forms. So Rachmaninov’s Vespers in the vast majority of numbers is built on the genuine melody of old monophonic chants. But at the same time, the composer managed to create a work that is 100% authorial, original in language and style, organically perceived and out of touch with the liturgical context. That is why the Vespers became the most performed great opus of Russian sacred music in the world.

Rethinking antiquity

Dialogue with the past determined a lot for Rachmaninoff, but the interlocutors in this dialogue were not only the titans of romanticism (as in the case of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). His piano legacy includes, for example, a transcription of Bach’s E-major violin partita. And also, of course, the famous Variations on a Theme by Corelli (1931), where the theme actually does not even belong to the great baroque violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli – still older and more global. This is an anonymous “folia”, on which, since the late Renaissance, author’s variations have been written in myriads. It was during Rachmaninov’s time that interest in old music and ancient performing practices became a noticeable part of modernist culture.

Permeability to popular genres

It is not by chance that jazz colors are distinguishable in late Rachmaninoff music – the composer loved jazz, was familiar with Gershwin and spoke enthusiastically about his music, he himself did not consider it shameful to play music in a jazz manner for his own entertainment. For the then critics, all this was a symptom of the “superficiality” and “frivolity” of Rachmaninoff. But “superficiality” did not prevent this music from thoroughly capturing a mass audience. Even during the composer’s lifetime, his works in a popular arrangement sounded on the stage every now and then. The same thing continued later – from Sinatra to modern pop artists: none of the academic composers of the twentieth century got such love from mass culture.