World soil specialist – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/01/2023

The first of April marks the birthday of Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), a Russian composer, pianist and conductor. This is a round anniversary – 150 years. On this day, in every city and every concert hall in Russia, his amazingly beautiful music is heard through and through, familiar to every listener. However, Rachmaninoff also belongs to world culture. Today it is played in Europe, America, and China. His work rewarded the world with common values, and the remnants of this community have not been destroyed even now, the composer, editor-in-chief of the Composer publishing house and long-term author of Kommersant is sure Peter Pospelov.

Perhaps Rachmaninov was born not on the first, but on the second of April according to the new style – it depends on how to correlate the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Rachmaninov himself indicated exactly the date of April 2, but biographers are still arguing. Composer of today or composer of tomorrow? Until recently, it seemed that only yesterday.

Rachmaninoff created more than fifty works, most of which were written in Russia up to and including 1917. At the same time, innovative scores by Stravinsky were being created, Prokofiev boldly declared himself – and even against the backdrop of the mystically complicated Scriabin, Rachmaninov looked like an anachronism. At the same time, no one doubted the quality of his music – the whole point was only a mismatch with the idea of ​​​​progress.

From an early age in his opuses, written back in the 19th century, an elegiac tone, coming from romanticism, was established, a drawn-out Russian intonation was developed, and imitation of bell ringing became an integral part of the style. Musicologists note another important feature of Rachmaninov’s melos – adherence to the style of old Russian Znamenny singing, when the melodic line unwinds around one sound, avoiding wide jumps. Most of his music is written in minor key: from a very young age he was sad about something, saying goodbye to something – maybe with Russia, although in Rachmaninoff’s young years she was still far from fatal shocks, or maybe with himself the type of art to which he belonged and which he mastered so brilliantly. Consolation sometimes came in the major apotheoses of piano concertos, just as spring rain washes away sadness and melancholy from the soul.

Having left for emigration in 1918, Rachmaninov stopped composing – his homeland no longer nourished his inspiration, he felt that few people would need his new compositions. But as a pianist, he gained great fame – both in Europe and in America. He was chased by agents, impresario, paparazzi and fans. Perhaps in the 1920s and 1930s, Rachmaninoff was the richest Russian artist in the world. His repertoire was wide, he played both the classics and his own pieces, of which the Prelude in C-sharp minor was especially popular – without this encore Rachmaninov could not finish a single concerto. The author cursed his work also because he did not register copyright for it. Otherwise, he could have spent many more millions on the most important business of life after music – disinterested, reckless help to people. In the hungry 1920s, tons of food parcels went to Moscow from Rakhmaninov, thanks to them the Moscow Art Theater and the Conservatory did not disappear from hunger – even Stanislavsky’s receipts for edible rations were preserved. He supported poor people not only in the USSR, which was alien to him, but also in Europe and in the USA – his generosity could only compete with his own modesty.

It would seem that Rachmaninoff’s harmonious, devoid of aggression style could become part of the Soviet aesthetics, as happened with Tchaikovsky. But proletarian culture did not want to tolerate the bourgeois emigrant in the repertoire: in the 1930s, especially after the anti-Stalinist letter signed by Rakhmaninov in The New York Times, his music was almost stopped playing. At home, Rachmaninoff became even more yesterday than he was before.

However, it was then that Rachmaninoff returned to composing. In his later years, he created only six compositions, but among them – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Symphonic Dances. They fit well into the conservative Hollywood aesthetics, but did not become a meaningful compromise – in them Rachmaninov expressed the expectation of new upheavals, as Stravinsky did in The Rite of Spring at the beginning of the 20th century (in the score of which, by the way, Rachmaninov, who treated Stravinsky with human sympathy , advised to enter the final chord in the bass – and the younger colleague followed this advice).

With the outbreak of war, Rachmaninov, forgetting ideological disagreements, again began to send money to Russia. They write that Rakhmaninov intended them for medicines and for the household needs of ordinary people, but two military aircraft were bought for them. One way or another, he was forgiven and was going to visit his homeland (as his Hollywood neighbor Stravinsky later did), but illness and death prevented him.

With the end of the war, the musical avant-garde entered the arena, Arnold Schoenberg’s methods were adopted even at US universities, not to mention Europe, where Rachmaninoff became perhaps a museum exhibit. But the avant-garde did not conquer the world, and the pluralism that replaced it saw in Rachmaninov what modern art lacked – harmony, organic beauty, deep humanity.

Today, at last, Rachmaninoff equally belongs to both Russia and the world. He settled in the present and, no doubt, will remain in the future.