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.

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