Sergei Rachmaninoff 1873 – 1943

Extract

Sergei Rachmaninoff has never attained serious consideration in the numerous dictionaries and symposia covering music in the century since his birth on 20 March (o.s.) 1873. And yet his music has survived where that of some of his more experimental contemporaries has had to be revived. Scriabin, one of Rachmaninoff's fellow-pupils in Zverev's class at the Moscow Conservatory, is an obvious example of a composer whose music was considered audacious and modernistic during his lifetime but fell into comparative oblivion after his death. It still remains to be seen whether interest in Scriabin will long survive the second death which often follows centenary celebrations. But Rachmaninoff's centenary finds his reputation neither in eclipse nor even, as it was ten years ago, resting more or less stably on half-a-dozen popular works. For some time most of his music has been attracting attention; there is little reason to suppose that the trend will prove temporary or insignificant, and frankly I hope it will not.