32, and the most famous of his compositions, the C-sharp-minor Prelude written when he was a teenager of 19, Rachmaninoff continued the tradition of Bach and Chopin by having written preludes in all 24 of the major and minor keys. With the addition of the later Thirteen Preludes, Op. It is no surprise, then, that Rachmaninoff would take inspiration from Chopin's precedent and begin composing a set of his own. 22, itself derived from Chopin's C-minor Prelude. The preludes were composed at the same time as his first extended piece for solo piano, the Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 5 in G minor, was completed as early as 1901. 23, of which Bronfman plays the first seven, were completed in 1903 - the most often performed of the set, No. Rachmaninoff was a composer, who had to perform for a living. In fact, his career as a virtuoso began out of necessity rather than inclination, when means of supporting his family became his primary concern as they moved from Europe to America. We should note, however, that almost all of the music for which he is best known was composed before the Russian revolution forced him and his family into exile from their homeland in December of 1917. His recorded legacy is still regarded with awe and his works for solo piano and piano with orchestra are staples of the repertory. When Sergei Rachmaninoff died in Beverly Hills in 1943, he had conquered the musical world both as pianist and as composer. Rachmaninoff would be remembered as the last of the line of Romantic greats Prokofiev would carry the label earned early in his career of the barbaric and percussive composer, the perpetual enfant terrible. If Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev can be said to share the genotype of the great Russian pianists/composers who carried on the legacy of Anton Rubinstein (1829-94), consider what different courses they were eventually to follow.
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