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Born: 1 April
1873, Onega, Russia
Died: 28 March 1943, Los Angeles, USA
Rachmaninoff,
Sergey
A great pianist
and one of Russia's
important composers. At an early age, when his rich father lost
his fortune, Rachmaninoff was sent to learn with a private teacher, in
whose house he met Tchaikovsky,
the composer who inspired him to write an opera sketch called "Aleko"
as a graduation exercise. He also wrote the Piano
Preludes Op. 3 (the most famous one is the Prelude
in C# minor). After his first symphony
failed, he wrote the No. 2 Concerto for Piano,
that had tremendous success and is popular to this very day. The Symphony
No. 2, Piano Concerto No. 3, and the
rest of his symphonic music, placed him as a prominent composer, but the
Communist Revolution of 1917 made him leave for the United
States, where he became a distinguished and successful concert pianist.
In the 1930's he went back to composing, and his "Rhapsody
on a theme by Paganini",
like the Third Symphony, put him back in the
center of the musical scene, till his death. In spite of the fact that
he was a 20th century composer, his music was always characterized by a
tendency to Classic
forms and loyalty to tonality.
Rachmaninoff on the WWW
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Description
He played
He Was
He Lived in the
Twentieth Century
In
Russia
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