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PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
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A lugubrious countenance, a life beset by tragedy,
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the general consensus is that there's little joy
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about the life and music of Sergei Rachmaninoff.
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This is a classic tale of right man, wrong time.
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Born in Russia in 1873 and dying in America in 1943,
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not only did Rachmaninoff weather the false accusation that he was an anachronism,
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someone writing gushing sentimental romantic music in a firmly modern age,
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he also lived through one of the most abject periods in recorded history.
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So why on earth is this called The Joy Of Rachmaninoff?
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Well, despite the critical brickbats and a pervasive sense of Slavic gloom in his live,
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there remains above all the time-transcending triumph of his music.
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In his own words,
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"Even with the disaster that has befallen the Russia where I was happiest,
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"I always felt that my music remained essentially and spiritually the same,
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"unending and obedient, trying to create beauty."
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HE TOASTS IN RUSSIAN
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Every classical music documentary
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ought to have a preposterous statue in it and this will pretty well do the trick.
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This purports to be Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff.
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Now, in real life, he doesn't really look like this.
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He had a kind of Savile Row dapperness and aloofness,
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and there's more than the whiff of a Hollywood cowboy about this.
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Kind of appropriate, given how much of Rachmaninoff's music ended up on the big screen,
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but his life began here in Novgorod in Imperial pre-revolutionary Russia.
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CHURCH BELL RESOUNDS DEEPLY
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This is one of the defining sounds of Russia,
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the bells of the Orthodox Church.
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In this case, the astonishing St Sophia's Cathedral in Novgorod.
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Rachmaninoff's grandmother took the young boy here
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and this very sound had a deep, resounding impact.
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BELLS CHIME
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Rachmaninoff later wrote,
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"The sound of bells dominated all the cities of Russia I used to know.
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"They accompanied every Russian from childhood to grave,
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"and no composer could escape their influence."
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MAN SINGS IN RUSSIAN
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An aristocratic child prodigy,
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Rachmaninoff entered the Moscow Conservatory at the age of 12 to study piano.
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There his focus shifted to composition,
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and in 1892 he won the Great Gold Medal with his final work, Aleko,
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a one-act opera based on Pushkin.
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How does a precocious teenager
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follow up the success of winning a prestigious Gold Medal
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with his final student composition?
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Well, by writing a worldwide, blockbuster, smash hit of course.
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In the summer of 1892, having just graduated from the Moscow Conservatory,
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Rachmaninoff moved in with the Satin family in Moscow.
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And one of the first pieces he wrote there
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was A Prelude For Solo Piano In C-sharp Minor.
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"I heard the endless tolling of the church bells,"
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Rachmaninoff wrote, "and it just came out of me with such force.
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"And I was still a teenager."
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20th-century music... I've struggled with a lot.
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And, you know, it was at a time, I guess, as you'd know,
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when you're looking at Stravinsky and Schoenberg and these extraordinary phrases,
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you know, like, "the emancipation of the dissonance"
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and "the tyranny of the bar line".
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This kind of activism in music pushing and exploding boundaries.
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And then you have Rachmaninoff at the same time, who's just, like,
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"I'm just going to write these immense, heroic,
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fantastic, lush, romantic melodies."
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And that, I just...
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I worship him for that. I love him for that.
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This is a teenage boy who writes the most extraordinary, visceral,
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dark kind of punishing piece of music.
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I mean, think about that,
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a teenage kid writes something that dark today,
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he'd be on Ritalin and in front of a shrink within two hours.
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I have a tattoo that says Sergei Rachmaninoff in Russian.
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I'm assuming, I don't speak Russian, it looks a bit like Jeremy Paxman.
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It's in Cyrillic and it says Sergei Rachmaninoff.
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I just... A part of me, I know it sounds pretentious,
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but always just wants to carry him around with me a little bit
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and just remember just what... what a dude he was.
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Geoffrey, we have three amazing artefacts from Rachmaninoff's compositional life in front of us.
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The first is the Prelude In C-sharp Minor,
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the single most famous piece that he wrote, certainly in this lifetime.
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What does it tell us about the teenage Rachmaninoff in 1892 writing this?
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Well, in fact, he could have almost retired on the basis of this,
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I think, if they'd thought to take out international copyright
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at the time, but they didn't.
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It just completely took fire,
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I suppose because in it people recognised a sort of Slavic mystery.
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It's a very dark piece with a lot of sort of ceremony and glitter to it.
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And I think probably people saw this
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representing the Russian characteristics that they loved to explore.
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What I really mean is a sense of fatalism,
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a very powerful seam of fatalism
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that runs through Rachmaninoff's music and which all Russians recognise.
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Rachmaninoff exudes Russianness
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in the same way that Elgar exudes Englishness.
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We know what it is, but we can't quite put our finger on it.
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Young Rachmaninoff's most important musical influence
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was a romantic mainline that can be boiled down to Rimsky-Korsakov and to this guy,
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the Russian giant of giants, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
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MUSIC: Piano Concerto No.1 by Tchaikovsky
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Not only was Tchaikovsky a musical catalyst,
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he was a personal mentor who went out of his way to champion the teenage Rachmaninoff.
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At the premiere of his opera, Aleko,
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Tchaikovsky conspicuously leaned out of his box to applaud with all of his might,
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aware of the power of such a public endorsement.
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And whenever he could, he pulled strings on behalf of "the kid".
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And Rachmaninoff was both enamoured and flattered by the attentions of this eminence grise.
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It was here at the miraculous St Petersburg Philharmonia,
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hardly changed since back in the day,
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that Rachmaninoff debuted his most ambitious orchestral work so far,
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his Symphony No.1 In D Minor on 15th March, 1897,
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at a Russian symphony concert conducted by Alexander Glazunov.
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The world, or at least Russia, was watching.
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FANFARE
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Rachmaninoff must've been nervous about the reaction,
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because this is where he watched the performance from,
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a staircase behind the stage.
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So he saw Glazunov give the first downbeat.
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And from the outset it was clear that something was terribly wrong.
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He didn't recognise the cacophony he heard.
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The orchestra couldn't play his symphony, it was too new and too hard.
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Glazunov was making a hash of it
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and there was even a rumour that he was drunk.
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Rachmaninoff's only consolation was at least from this position,
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he could make a quick and low-key getaway.
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Up until that time, he could do no wrong.
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He was the golden boy of the Moscow Conservatory in piano playing and in composition.
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Everything he did was a great success.
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And suddenly, 1897 - wallop! - there's a great failure
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with the Premier of the First Symphony.
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The critics had a field day.
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The eminent composer Cesar Cui led the pack.
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He wrote, "If there was a conservatory in hell
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and if one of the composers was asked to write a symphony on the ten plagues of Egypt,
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"if it sounded like Mr Rachmaninoff, he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly."
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Rachmaninoff never allowed the First Symphony to be heard again in his lifetime.
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And the full score has never even been found,
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but I think it's a work of fierce imagination.
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It's full of varying harmonies and experimental treatment of melodies
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that are inspired by Russian Orthodox chant.
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It's simply because it was so advanced in its ideas
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that the First Symphony went beyond the audience and the orchestra that night and the critics too.
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Who needs them?
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If you listen carefully to the last movement of the First Symphony...
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in all this carnivalesque celebration...
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you will hear the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
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The final page of the Symphony
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seemed to pre-echo the end of the Fifth Symphony by Shostakovich,
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which was yet to be written 40 years later.
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I don't know how he knew all that.
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He must have had some prophetic...
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Like some people who have manic depressive inclinations,
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and Rachmaninoff was partly manic depressive, I believe,
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they can feel things before they happen.
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Working as a conductor in Moscow,
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Rachmaninoff met the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin
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and the pair became firm friends.
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An incident involving the duo
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would lead the singer to a compositional crisis.
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FEODOR SINGS IN RUSSIAN
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By 1900, Rachmaninoff and his mate Chaliapin were the toast of Moscow.
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Both aged 26, they were young bucks about town,
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and every part of Muscovite society wanted a piece of the duo.
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And on January 9th, 1900,
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they received the ultimate invitation to come here.
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This is the house of Leo Tolstoy,
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who was and is the great man of Russian literature.
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And the writer of epics like Anna Karenina and War And Peace
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was a hero for both Rachmaninoff and Chaliapin.
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And the person that they met on that cold evening in January, 1900,
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would have looked like this.
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Possibly the first ever colour photograph in Russia.
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By 1900, Tolstoy had the status of a secular god in Russia.
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He had followers, he had the whole of educated society
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not just reading him but following him.
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And after Anna Karenina,
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Tolstoy gets all moralistic and serious
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and rejects the whole of civilisation
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to become a sort of pseudo-peasant.
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Chaliapin later recalled,
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"Tolstoy was then living with his family in the Khamovniki district of Moscow.
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"Rachmaninoff and I climbed the wooden staircase of a very charming house.
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"Up till then, I had seen only portraits of Tolstoy
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"and now he himself appeared standing by a small chess table.
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"Rachmaninoff whispered, 'If I'm asked to play, I don't see how I can, my hands are ice cold!'"
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Of course, the duo were begged to perform.
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And Rachmaninoff chose a song that he'd recently completed called Fate,
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based on the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
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with lyrics inspired by Pushkin's The Gypsies.
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VOCALIST SINGS IN RUSSIAN
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- So a song about fate as an old woman?
- Yes.
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- It's kind of a striking image?
- Well, it is very Russian.
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In Russia you imagine death as an old woman with the...
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- What do you...?
- Scythe for cutting the corn?
- Yeah, for cutting the corn.
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- This is it.
- Yeah.
- That's the image, so it's...
- And we are the corn?
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- Yeah, we are.
- Yeah.
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ALEX SINGS IN RUSSIAN
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And Rachmaninoff himself tells us what happened next.
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"To describe the way Feodor sang is impossible.
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"He sang the way Tolstoy wrote,
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"and when we finished we felt that all were delighted.
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"Suddenly the enthusiastic applause was hushed and everyone fell silent.
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"Tolstoy, sitting in an armchair a little apart from the others,
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"was gloomy and cross.
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"'Is such music needed by anybody?
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"'What music is most necessary for men, scholarly or folk music?'"
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"And just to make the point completely clear, he said,
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"'I must tell you how I dislike all of it.
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"'Beethoven is nonsense, Pushkin also.'"
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TOM LAUGHS
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ALEX SINGS IN RUSSIAN
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An hour later, a somewhat cooler Leo approached Sergei
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to ask for forgiveness for his earlier outburst.
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"How can I be hurt on my account," Sergei replied,
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"if I wasn't on Beethoven's?"
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Rachmaninoff never came back.
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How would you have reacted if you'd been singing to Tolstoy?
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- "Thank you very much for your opinion."
- IAN LAUGHS
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This was a pivotal encounter for the composer.
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You know, even the choice of song, Fate,
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was significant for a man whose oeuvre and whose whole approach to life
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was characterised by a sense of fatalism.
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And, in fact, Tolstoy's rejection of Rachmaninoff pushed him towards a new depth of doubt.
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His self-criticism became so severe
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that the completion or even initiation of a composition became impossible.
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It was time for drastic action.
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WOMAN HARMONISES
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The turn of the century was a time of pioneering new approaches in medicine.
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And Dr Nikolai Dahl specialised in the therapeutic value of hypnosis.
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And Rachmaninoff was so desperate that instead of his usual stubbornness,
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he quickly agreed to see the good doctor,
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and together they embarked upon a course of what we now call therapy.
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Look into my eyes. You'll feel sleepy. Go on, look into my eyes.
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TOM'S VOICE FADES
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Little is actually known about what happened between Dahl and Rachmaninoff,
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but one thing is for certain,
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the therapy had a dramatic effect on the happiness of the young composer.
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"Although it may seem incredible," he said, "this cure really helped me,
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"and by the beginning of the summer I began to compose,
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"the material grew in bulk and new musical ideas began to stir in me,
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"more than enough for my concerto."
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- This is the Second Piano Concerto?
- Yes.
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What an amazing thing to be able to handle this score and look at it,
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but before we even get to the notes, Geoffrey,
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I just want to ask you quickly about the title page,
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because the piece is dedicated to...
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- There we are to... BOTH:
- Monsieur N Dahl.
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To Dr Dahl, who he said basically brought him back to compositional life.
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- Here it is.
- Yes.
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Is there a more famous introduction to a piano concerto
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than these semibreves and minims?
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MUSIC: Second Piano Concerto by Sergei Rachmaninoff
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- This surely is bells?
- It must be, mustn't it?
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- It seems the most obvious.
- Yes, the great, deep bass bell
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and the chords in the right hand.
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The opening of the Second Piano Concerto,
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the melody and the piano score is eight pages long, it never stops.
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Just when you think... No, it goes on and takes..
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And I think as humans we love that, we love melody.
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What we love of Schubert, what we love the Beatles, whatever it is,
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we love something that is in our head.
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And when it's sad melody, it's particularly...
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It gets to our heart. I mean, it just permeates our being.
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And I think we all... We love to be sad.
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BOTH LAUGH
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And even in the second movement,
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the short introduction of eight chords from...
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Really that he's taken from the beginning of the first movement in C-minor and then...
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Which is this key. And then the piano comes in a very different key, E-major.
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Very simple, no melody.
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Over which the flute and the clarinet weave this exquisite...
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And so on. And then the piano talks to them. It's like chamber music.
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And it's terribly simple and very unsentimental.
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And it's something like a very still lake or something very beautiful and calm.
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And that's another human emotion when we're, you know,
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exhausted with passion and you find a stillness that's not overly passionate,
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but still very beautiful with a great simplicity.
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There is a kind of... You know, he's channelling something.
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It's the human condition, isn't it?
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I think he...he writes what we feel.
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I mean, that's such genius to be able to take what's in all of our hearts
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at certain times of our life and put it into music,
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not in a schmaltzy way, but in a very real and tangible way
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that leaves us with something that we want to go back
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and have repeated listening to it.
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But where did the ideas, the melodies of the Second Concerto come from?
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Are they really the result of some hypnotic trance?
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Or are they rather the bells, the chants,
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the emotional trauma of Rachmaninoff's life transmuted into musical gold
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through his compositional alchemy of melancholy?
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We do know at least where the tunes end up,
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in films like Brief Encounter or The Seven Year Itch
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and so many other places in popular culture.
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- Rachmaninoff!
- The Second Piano Concerto.
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And, more importantly, the Second Piano Concerto,
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maybe more than any other orchestral work by anyone,
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has become a feeling, a place of psychic and expressive release
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that Rachmaninoff created but that we all share.
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In the early 1900s, there was a drive to find new languages
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of dissonant harmonies and complex rhythms.
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Modernism wouldn't interest Rachmaninoff,
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but it would make him feel out of favour.
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"I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien.
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"I cannot cast out the old way of writing and nor can I acquire the new.
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"I can't throw out my musical gods in a moment
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"and bend the knee to new ones."
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Grove's Dictionary from Mr Eric Bloom,
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who probably was a very knowledgeable...
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- A very knowledgeable critic, a very great critic.
- Yes.
- What did he say?
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He said, "Rachmaninoff's music, well constructed and effective
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"but monotonous in texture."
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How could it be monotonous? Very interesting.
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"Which consists of many artificial gushing tunes
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"accompanying a variety of figures derived from arpeggios."
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"Enormous popular success,
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some admirers he had in his lifetime, not likely to last."
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And it's still lasting, eh? Where are we, in 2015?
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00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:40,120
And not only the general audiences like the nice tunes,
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great orchestras, great musicians, great vocalists love this music,
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because they think in essence
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it conveys something extremely important, something of our existence.
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Well, the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata was written in the same year
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as his famous, very famous Second Piano Concerto.
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And it inhabits something of the same world.
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It's after he came out of his big depression.
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It's not only a great romantic work, it's also a very religious work,
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and there's a lot of bells.
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And I think it's a mistake just to approach it as a romantic sonata,
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it's more than that.
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It's deeply spiritual.
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Like all the best classical music documentaries,
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I'm pushing myself close to the edge, dear viewer, and possibly beyond.
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I've absolutely no idea where we are.
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We're been driving for hours.
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I think I'm a bit hypnotised
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00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,280
by the beauty but monotony of this landscape.
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I do know at least that we're travelling about 500km south-east of Moscow
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to a place of huge personal significance for Rachmaninoff.
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If we get there.
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RUSSIAN FOLK MUSIC PLAYS
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WOMEN CHANT IN RUSSIAN
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WOMEN CHANT IN RUSSIAN
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TOM LAUGHS
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Russians adore Rachmaninoff,
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none more so than in the region of Tambov,
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where disciples have lovingly recreated
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Rachmaninoff's aristocratic summer residence on the original site.
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CHANTING CONTINUES
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PIANO PLAYS
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When he wasn't performing,
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Rachmaninoff would spend his summers here at his cousins' estate of Ivanovka,
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far from the hectic swirl of Moscow deep in the region of Tambov.
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And in 1902, he would marry one of those cousins, Natalia Satina,
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and just a few years later he had inherited the whole place.
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This was inspirational therapy,
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00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:13,560
just the tonic for a self-doubting young man.
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The landed estate, or the favoured landed estate, the ancestral home,
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was very important to the landed gentry.
356
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,080
And they might have several estates,
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but there would likely be one which was home.
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And Ivanovka was that for Rachmaninoff and his extended family.
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00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:38,120
And it would be a place where they might spend every summer.
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00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,760
So country pursuits, everything from hunting to picnics,
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00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,040
mushroom gathering, were part of that lifestyle.
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WOMAN HARMONISES
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I mean, we see it every time we look at a Chekhov play,
364
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:01,280
it's that we're talking about in Ivanovka.
365
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,120
"Ivanovka, 20 years of my life I spent here.
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00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,240
"Every Russian feels strong ties with the soil,
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00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:15,280
"the endless fields of wheat stretching as far as the eye can see,
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00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,880
"the smell of the earth and everything that grows and blossoms.
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00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:22,760
"I felt so good here, I could work and work hard.
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"Here, at last, I found blessed happiness."
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This photograph shows Rachmaninoff in his late 30s here at Ivanovka
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working on proofs, on copies of his Third Piano Concerto,
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I think one of his absolute masterpieces.
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00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:02,920
Now, he wrote this piece in 1909 for his first tour to America
375
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,760
and for himself to play too as a kind of calling card. What a calling card.
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00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,680
Rach 3!
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It's monumental!
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00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,880
It's a mountain. It's the hardest piece you could Everest play.
379
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,840
Well, no-one's ever been mad enough to attempt the Rach 3!
380
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,880
The Rach 3, obviously. I mean, Shine, totally worth the hype.
381
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,240
My God, that piece!
382
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:29,640
Think of it as two separate melodies jousting for supremacy.
383
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:36,080
Your hands, giants, ten fingers each.
384
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,320
Performing is a risk, you know. No safety net.
385
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,760
Make no mistake, David, it's dangerous.
386
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:48,520
You could get hurt.
387
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:53,000
And it gets harder even in the slow movement, "OK, slow movement, you've got time to breathe."
388
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:57,280
And you do for, like, 30 seconds and then it's just even harder than the first movement.
389
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,720
And it doesn't stop. And I would see, you know, the things he would ask you to do
390
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,160
with octaves and the speed and the accuracy.
391
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:09,800
People who can do things like that, it should be illegal in a way, it's...it's inhuman.
392
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:27,400
There's a moment in the first movement in the solo bit, the cadenza,
393
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,720
Rachmaninoff writes an alternative, a so-called ossia,
394
00:34:30,720 --> 00:34:34,560
and it is one of those moments where he's asking his interpreters,
395
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,240
"Are you Rachmaninoff?"
396
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,640
No! It's not good.
397
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,440
Ivanovka may have inspired Rachmaninoff,
398
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:44,480
but his melancholy and fatalism never left.
399
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:49,240
This is Arnold Bocklin's painting The Isle Of The Dead
400
00:35:49,240 --> 00:35:52,760
and it inspired one of Rachmaninoff's finest orchestral pieces.
401
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,960
He composed it in 1909, but he originally saw this painting in 1907
402
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,440
in a black-and-white reproduction in Paris.
403
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:03,160
And when he finally saw it in its vaguely Technicolor original,
404
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:07,080
he was a bit shocked and said, "I'm not sure I'd have been able to write the music I did,"
405
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:11,720
because he preferred in fact the gloominess of that black-and-white version that he first saw.
406
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,160
The music opens with the churn,
407
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:22,120
the push-pull of the boatman rowing the dead to this mysterious dark maw
408
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:26,120
of the cypress grove from which there is no return.
409
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,480
And Rachmaninoff writes in the centre of the piece
410
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:34,440
music that symbolises the soul crying out memories of life and love,
411
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,960
how wonderful existence was.
412
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,240
But by the end of the piece,
413
00:36:47,240 --> 00:36:50,880
death returns and claims whoever the hero of this piece is.
414
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:53,400
And as so often in Rachmaninoff's music,
415
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,680
that final fatalistic victory is symbolised
416
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:01,560
by his quotation of the terrifying ancient and arcane Dies Irae chant.
417
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:05,840
The day of anger taking all of us to death.
418
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,200
I think that...
419
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,600
Rachmaninoff, like a lot of people of his time,
420
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:31,240
was obsessed with this eschatological awareness
421
00:37:31,240 --> 00:37:35,040
of the end of the world coming soon.
422
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,880
It created this incredible angst
423
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:42,280
and sense of the expectation of a great tragedy.
424
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,360
It's...
425
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:49,760
It's a...permanent purgatorium.
426
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:54,320
What does Rachmaninoff prophesise for us today?
427
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:59,360
Well, I don't want to be a false prophet myself,
428
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:05,520
back then they were obviously prophesying world wars,
429
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:10,000
the First and the Second and more bloodshed.
430
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,200
CHOIR SINGS IN RUSSIAN
431
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:12,280
In 1915, Rachmaninoff wrote his choral masterpiece, his All-Night Vigil,
432
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:13,800
better known as his Vespers,
433
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,760
based on the chants of the Russian Orthodox Church.
434
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,280
It was first performed on March 10th that year
435
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,400
by the Moscow Synodal Choir,
436
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:26,320
but behind the liturgical beauty of this work lies a great sadness.
437
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,040
CHOIR SINGS IN RUSSIAN
438
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:41,320
It's a work of great... transcendental power.
439
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:45,000
And a work which...
440
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,920
has the power and intent of consolation,
441
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:53,840
to console people in grief.
442
00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:00,560
But at the same time, you can feel
443
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:03,760
that the one who is giving this consolation
444
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,040
is actually desperate himself.
445
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,000
No composition represents the end of an era
446
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:14,680
as clearly as the All-Night Vigil.
447
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,280
Written as Bolshevism swept the land,
448
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:22,640
within three years of its composition the Soviet Union had banned all religious composition.
449
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,160
And that was that. The lights went out
450
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,680
on a mind-boggling half a millennium of Russian church music
451
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,840
and the last act was Rachmaninoff.
452
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,400
CHOIR SINGS IN RUSSIAN
453
00:40:55,520 --> 00:41:00,240
Rachmaninoff's masterpiece of sacred music, the Vespers,
454
00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:07,040
that was a piece that was not allowed to be performed in Soviet times in Russia.
455
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:12,240
But you did hear a performance of Rachmaninoff's Vespers in Soviet Russia?
456
00:41:12,240 --> 00:41:16,400
One day a friend of mine comes to me and says,
457
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,200
"Are you free this evening?" I said, "Why?"
458
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,880
"Because in one of the churches
459
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:28,280
"I know that the chorus master decided to have Rachmaninoff's Vespers tonight.
460
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:32,720
"Would you like to come to hear it?" And, of course, I ran there.
461
00:41:32,720 --> 00:41:35,240
All musicians in Moscow came there,
462
00:41:35,240 --> 00:41:38,080
because at that time in the Soviet Union,
463
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:42,680
religious music was practically never played in the concert halls,
464
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:46,320
but a church had the right to do it.
465
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,920
Since Rachmaninoff's birth, Russia had been in turmoil.
466
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:54,240
After decades of poverty and famine,
467
00:41:54,240 --> 00:41:59,680
the proletariat and peasantry seized power from the ruling class in 1917.
468
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,840
The Russian Revolution was a decisive moment for the composer.
469
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,520
The whole future of Russia changed in just two days,
470
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,640
on the 24th and 25th of October, 1917,
471
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:14,520
when the Bolshevik party, led by this guy, Vladimir Lenin,
472
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:17,200
overthrew the provisional government here in St Petersburg
473
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,360
and replaced it with what would become the Soviet Union.
474
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:25,440
Rachmaninoff, who had toughed it out when many Russian aristocrats had already scarpered,
475
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:30,000
knew that now he really did have to get out of Russia and pronto.
476
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:49,600
An invitation to perform in Sweden provided the perfect excuse to get exit permits,
477
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:55,240
and the Rachmaninoffs left by train on 23rd December, 1917,
478
00:42:55,240 --> 00:42:57,800
from right here, Finlyandsky Station,
479
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:02,760
ironically the scene of Lenin's triumphant return from exile just a few months earlier.
480
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:05,240
And Sergei left in such a hurry that he took with him
481
00:43:05,240 --> 00:43:09,080
just one small suitcase containing a handful of compositions.
482
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,720
And as the train pulled away, he would have hoped otherwise,
483
00:43:12,720 --> 00:43:16,240
but Sergei Rachmaninoff would never see Russia again.
484
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,240
Well, the sort of area of Tambov, Penza,
485
00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:41,560
was really at the centre of the agrarian revolution in 1905,
486
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:45,080
and then again even more violently in 1917,
487
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:50,880
when peasants marched on the manors and declared rent strikes
488
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:56,000
and, you know, later as in Ivanovka,
489
00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:00,280
smoked out the gentry by literally intimidating them
490
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,400
and then burning down their manor houses.
491
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:06,240
After Rachmaninoff fled Russia,
492
00:44:06,240 --> 00:44:09,880
he never saw his beloved Ivanovka again.
493
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:15,440
The entire state was razed to the ground by the Bolsheviks in 1918
494
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:18,960
and Rachmaninoff would spend the rest of his life in exile,
495
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:23,080
for ever trying to recreate the spirit of Ivanovka.
496
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:44,640
Rachmaninoff would come to settle in America where his fame preceded him
497
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,280
and where he built a comfortable existence for himself
498
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:51,480
thanks to a lucrative if exhausting career as a concert pianist.
499
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,600
Now, he bought his first American home
500
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:57,040
on the West Side, New York City, in 1921.
501
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:00,040
So this was the New York of the roaring '20s -
502
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,240
fast, loud, brash, jazzy -
503
00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:06,680
a total culture shock for an aristocratic Russian.
504
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:08,640
And whether it was his homesickness,
505
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:10,800
or the fact that he was away touring so much,
506
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,120
Rachmaninoff, who'd been a major prolific composer,
507
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:18,720
would only write half a dozen large compositions in the rest of his life.
508
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:30,880
On a number of occasions in America,
509
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:33,760
Rachmaninoff would commit his fingers to shellac,
510
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:38,120
bequeathing the world stunning recordings of one of its greatest pianists.
511
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:49,080
We spoke earlier a little bit about the third concerto
512
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:50,920
and it's incredible to hear him play that.
513
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,800
One, two, one, two.
514
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:00,480
There's no sense of...
515
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:03,360
It's cold.
516
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,800
It's like a distant snowscape of something - very...
517
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:10,360
and there's a coldness to Rachmaninoff as well as the heat.
518
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:17,320
He was an introvert. He was a very shy person.
519
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:22,320
He didn't have any of what today's virtuosos have -
520
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:24,480
this outgoing nature.
521
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,880
There's more of a... You could compare him with Glenn Gould.
522
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,640
He plays without any affectation.
523
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,480
Very straightforward.
524
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:37,520
He knew that music is music and that it's not showbiz.
525
00:46:41,720 --> 00:46:45,160
He had such huge hands. I mean, if you look at his hands,
526
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:48,640
the span, just on his left hand,
527
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,120
using all five fingers, he could do C, E-flat, G -
528
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:54,040
this is where I have to stop.
529
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,360
C and then, with the thumb...
530
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:57,600
Bloody G as well!
531
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:00,760
- That was a single...
- That was one hand.
- ..on his left hand.
532
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:20,920
In 1931, Rachmaninoff designed
533
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:25,320
and built a refuge from his hectic American touring schedule,
534
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,920
here on the banks of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.
535
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:46,960
Villa Senar, so-called because it's a combination of the names
536
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:48,960
of the Lord and Lady of the manor -
537
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,680
Sergei and Natalia Rachmaninoff.
538
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,680
And this is a no-expense-spared attempt to recreate
539
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:59,200
the sense of spiritual happiness that Rachmaninoff at Ivanovka
540
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,760
and it proved to be a place where he really could
541
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,800
gather his creative forces and compose meaningfully once again.
542
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:11,760
It's a very modern Bauhaus design for a supposedly romantic composer.
543
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,480
Senar is also the only of Rachmaninoff's homes
544
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:19,800
to be preserved essentially as the composer knew it and I'm told inside
545
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:22,360
are artefacts relating to the great man,
546
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:26,040
so here I hope to commune with the spirit of Rachmaninoff.
547
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:38,720
This suit, this is a three-piece suit here.
548
00:48:38,720 --> 00:48:40,440
Here we are. Sorry, Sergei.
549
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:42,800
Waistcoat, jacket, plus fours and flat cap.
550
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:45,960
I mean, this belongs to an English country gentleman rather than
551
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:49,280
a Russian aristocrat living in Switzerland, you would have thought.
552
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:54,080
Well, it's... It's a sign, again, of the elegance of Sergei Rachmaninoff.
553
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:57,480
There are several picture of Sergei here, in the house,
554
00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:59,160
even working, cutting wood...
555
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,320
- In this suit?
- In this suit.
556
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,200
There's also something I wanted to show you
557
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:13,240
because this is pretty impressive. This shows you how big the man was.
558
00:49:13,240 --> 00:49:14,480
HE LAUGHS
559
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:18,760
- So that's only coming down to his knees and...
- Yes, exactly.
560
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,280
I mean, of course, it was taken apart,
561
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:22,800
but you see he was a big man.
562
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,640
It says something - as well as his stature - that says something
563
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,280
about the way that the elegance is part of the personality
564
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,440
and indeed possibly part of the music.
565
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,600
I mean, this really is a Savile Row...
566
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:34,960
This is a made in London suit.
567
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,320
This is literally made for an English gentleman.
568
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,880
It just so happens that here, Davies & Son, 1920,
569
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:44,320
Hannover Street in London, it's made for Sergei Rachmaninoff.
570
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,080
Those pieces, the two major pieces from Senar, the Third Symphony
571
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:50,760
and the Rhapsody On A Theme of Paganini,
572
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:56,200
what, for you, is the relationship between those pieces and this place?
573
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,760
Well, I think variations number 18
574
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:03,400
and the beginning of the second movement of the Symphony,
575
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,560
they have such a serene approach...
576
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:09,600
To the world, to life.
577
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:13,720
It's like somebody who has found the solution,
578
00:50:13,720 --> 00:50:16,720
how to deal with all troubles, all problems,
579
00:50:16,720 --> 00:50:20,160
all disasters you can have in life
580
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:24,920
and finally said, in any case, "Life is still something good to live."
581
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:54,160
The 18th variation from the Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini -
582
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:55,880
the anthem of Senar -
583
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,040
played on the piano on which it was written in 1934
584
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:00,920
and performed by Dmitri,
585
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,960
the last pupil of Rachmaninoff's grandson.
586
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:08,120
This is as close as it's possible to be today to Sergei Rachmaninoff.
587
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:29,920
That precise variation from the Paganini Rhapsody, I mean,
588
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:31,600
that tune that's so moving,
589
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:34,160
- it's an inversion...
- Yes.
- ..of the melody...
- It is.
590
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,600
It's actually quite a geometric approach to it, isn't it?
591
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:38,200
It's so powerful. It's so brilliant.
592
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:40,400
You have the melody...
593
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:44,320
In A-minor and you turn it around on its head, in D-flat major.
594
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:47,880
And, suddenly, the sun comes out.
595
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:52,040
And the sun comes out so rarely in Rachmaninoff's music
596
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:54,760
that this moment is very, very special.
597
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:18,240
Hearing this now, here, in this space, in this light,
598
00:52:18,240 --> 00:52:20,760
with these photos of Rachmaninoff here,
599
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,640
his hands as a sort of spectral presence as well,
600
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:24,880
a plaster bust,
601
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:28,920
what strikes me most about this music is its generosity.
602
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:34,280
These cascades of emotion that I'm feeling,
603
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:35,560
and that you're feeling,
604
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,000
are given with such complete direct generosity by this man.
605
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,480
I think it's... It's one of the great miracles of music, this.
606
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,200
You know, of everywhere I've been,
607
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:59,920
it's this place that feels like the joy of Rachmaninoff.
608
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:39,320
In 1939, war would return to both Russian and Europe,
609
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,760
forcing Rachmaninoff to forgo these Senar vacations,
610
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:46,760
leaving him permanently marooned on the west coast of the USA.
611
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:50,040
Like so many immigrants,
612
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:54,240
Rachmaninoff's nostalgia for his homeland increased as the situation
613
00:53:54,240 --> 00:53:56,640
there became more and more desperate.
614
00:53:56,640 --> 00:54:01,080
Revolution, civil war, the World Wars, but Rachmaninoff's Russia
615
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:02,400
was lost for ever.
616
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:12,240
And he felt that pain of longing when he heard music by other
617
00:54:12,240 --> 00:54:13,440
Russian composers too.
618
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:16,360
Listening to a broadcast of Stravinsky's The Firebird,
619
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:20,440
he said, "Lord, how much greater than genius this is.
620
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,040
"It is real Russia."
621
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:07,760
In 1942, at the age of 69, and in the middle of what
622
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:12,360
he planned to be his last ever North American tour,
623
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:17,360
Rachmaninoff fell seriously ill and, confined to his bed in Los Angeles,
624
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:22,600
his wife Natalia read him Pushkin and the news from war-torn Russia.
625
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:27,280
And as the Red Army began to turn the tide on the Eastern Front,
626
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,520
the ailing Rachmaninoff uttered, "Praise the Lord.
627
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:33,080
"May God grant them strength."
628
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:39,520
But before Russia was liberated, on the 18th of March 1943,
629
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,120
Sergei Rachmaninoff died.
630
00:55:56,680 --> 00:56:00,640
The composer was buried in Valhalla, New York.
631
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:03,320
Rachmaninoff requested that the fifth of his Vespers be
632
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:05,000
performed at his funeral,
633
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,280
his most cherished moment in his favourite work.
634
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:14,320
HE SINGS
635
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,880
Towards the very end of his life,
636
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:38,760
a cable came from Moscow detailing plans for an upcoming concert
637
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:41,800
to celebrate Rachmaninoff's 70th birthday but,
638
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:45,880
by the time it arrived, he was already in a coma,
639
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:48,680
so he would never read these words.
640
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:52,920
"Dear Sergei Vasilievich, on the occasion of your 70th anniversary,
641
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:57,000
"the Union of Soviet Composers sends you warm congratulations
642
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:01,600
"and hearty wishes in good spirits in health for many years to come."
643
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:03,480
THEY SING
644
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:19,320
"We greet you as a composer of whom Russian culture is proud,
645
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:21,480
"as the greatest pianist of our time.
646
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:27,160
"And as a brilliant conductor and public man, who, in these times,
647
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:30,040
"has shown patriotic feelings that have found
648
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:33,320
"a response in the heart of every Russian."
649
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:45,240
I think, in his heart, that the real man is very deep-thinking,
650
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,320
a very solitary person,
651
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:49,920
and one with a huge amount of expression
652
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:56,000
and not afraid of expressing really sad, deep emotions.
653
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:06,840
You know Spinal Tap, when it goes up to 11?
654
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,560
He takes it up to 11 and he does it unapologetically.
655
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:11,680
He just takes his romantic machine guns
656
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,840
and he just nukes the entire audience.
657
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:18,440
It's so wonderful that we can talk now about this as great music
658
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:20,240
because, really, 50/60 years ago,
659
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:23,760
it would have been unthinkable for someone with any musicological
660
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:27,480
background even to admit to listening to Rachmaninoff,
661
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:29,240
never mind admiring him.
662
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:30,920
But I think we can see him
663
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:34,480
as one of the great 20th-century master composers.
58955
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