The Doctor Who Lifted a Broken Composer

One failure, a long silence

That day's failure was brutal. The conductor was the respected composer Alexander Glazunov, but rehearsal was inadequate and the performance did not bring the work to life. The critic and composer César Cui wrote a scathing review, suggesting this was music only the inhabitants of hell would enjoy.

The young Rachmaninoff collapsed inwardly. For the next few years he wrote almost no major works. He would sit at the piano and nothing would come. Later, looking back on that time, he said he had felt like a man who had been struck on the head.

Dr Nikolai Dahl

In 1900 worried family and friends took him to a doctor, Nikolai Dahl, a music lover who had studied hypnotherapy. Over several months Dahl met Rachmaninoff and worked to rebuild his confidence. According to Rachmaninoff's recollection, Dahl kept telling him that he would write a new concerto and that it would be excellent.

Whether or not that did the trick, Rachmaninoff picked up his pen again. The result was the Second Piano Concerto. In 1901 in Moscow, with Rachmaninoff himself at the piano, the complete work was performed for the first time, to great success. He dedicated the concerto to Dr Dahl.

Comfort in the slow movement

The second movement we hear today is the heart of that concerto. Muted strings open quietly with a few chords; the piano spreads out a gently rippling accompaniment; above it the flute sings the melody first, and the clarinet takes it up. It is music like someone who had fallen apart catching their breath again.