Sergei Rachmaninoff

A declining family

Rachmaninoff was born in 1873 into a noble family near Novgorod in Russia. But his father failed to hold on to the family's wealth; estates were lost one by one, and his parents separated. The bells and chants of the churches he attended with his grandmother, it is said, sank deep into the boy's ears.

A strict teacher

As a boy he attended the St Petersburg Conservatory but neglected his studies and got poor marks. On the advice of his cousin Alexander Siloti, a pianist and pupil of Liszt, he moved into the home of Nikolai Zverev, a stern Moscow piano teacher, living and studying with him. In a harsh regime of practice from dawn, his skill grew fast. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with a gold medal.

The prelude and the failure

His Prelude in C-sharp minor, written around nineteen, was hugely popular; for the rest of his life audiences demanded it at his concerts. But when his First Symphony was savaged in 1897, he fell apart and could not write major works for several years. Treated by the physician Nikolai Dahl, he recovered and completed the Second Piano Concerto in 1901.

Conductor in Moscow

The next year he married his cousin Natalia Satina. He also worked as a conductor at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, and wrote his Second Symphony and Third Piano Concerto. Summers he spent composing at Ivanovka, the country estate he loved most.

Exile and the stage

After leaving Russia, Rachmaninoff toured as a pianist, mostly in America, to support his family. Past forty, he had to learn other composers' music anew. He became one of the leading pianists of his era, but his time for composing shrank greatly. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is one of the few large works from this period.

The end

In later years he built a house by a Swiss lake and spent summers there, moving to America when the Second World War broke out. In 1943 he became an American citizen, and that March he died in California, shy of seventy. He is said to have longed for Russia to the end.

Music to hear on Pyeongeum

• Piano Concerto No. 2, first and second movements; Vocalise.

Hear the bell-like opening chords of the concerto, then the wordless singing of the Vocalise. Russia's bells and songs were always deep inside his music.

People around him

• Nikolai Zverevthe piano teacher who lived with and strictly trained him.
• Alexander Silotihis cousin and a pianist, who guided and supported him.
• Nikolai Dahlthe doctor who helped him rise again, dedicatee of the Second Concerto.
• His wife Nataliahis cousin and a pianist, by his side all his life.