Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

With Donald Macleod.

1/5. Early Life

Rachmaninov was born into a musical family. His grandfather had studied with John Field and would sit most mornings playing pieces by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Field.

Initially, his family were well off, with extensive property holdings in North Western Russia, but by the 1880s, their finances were in such a dire state that the family had to sell up and move to a cramped flat in St Petersburg. It was there that Sergei Rachmaninov's musical path began in earnest when, at the age of ten, he won a scholarship to the St Petersburg Conservatory.

Prelude in C sharp minor, Op 3, No 2

Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano)

Piano Concerto No 1 (1st mvt)

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Bernard Haitink (conductor)

Aleko's Cavatina (Aleko)

Maria Guleghina (soprano)

Sergei Leiferkus (baritone)

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Neeme Jarvi (conductor)

Piano Trio No 2 in D minor (1st mvt)

The Borodin Trio.

Born to a musical family, Rachmaninov won a scholarship to the St Petersburg Conservatory.

With Donald Macleod.

2/5. The Young Artist

Following the success of his one act student opera Aleko, and his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory, in 1892 Rachmaninov embarked upon a career as a composer. Initially he was forced to take on teaching jobs to supplement his income and write some money-spinning piano works, but gradually he was offered more perfomances of his music. But in 1897, the critics savaged the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony. The experience devastated Rachmaninov who was then unable to compose anything for the next two years.

The Chorus of Spirits

Russian State Symphonic Cappella

Nye poy krasaavitsa, pri mnye (Do not sing to me fair maiden, Op 4 No 4)

Alexandre Naoumenko (tenor)

Howard Shelley (piano)

Cello Sonata (2nd mvt)

Moray Welsh (cello)

Martin Roscoe (piano)

Spring

Tigram Martyrosyan (bass)

Russian State Symphonic Capella

Russian State Symphony Orchestra

Valery Polyansky (conductor)

Second Symphony (slow mvt)

Philharmonia Orchestra

Kurt Sanderling (conductor)

Were you hiccupping, Natasha?

Sergei Leiferkus (bass)

Howard Shelley (piano).

In 1892 Rachmaninov began his career as a composer, but his First Symphony was savaged.

With Donald Macleod.

3/5. A Spiritual Homeland

In common with his countrymen Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Rachmaninov drew on the music of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as the diverse range of folk music encompassed by the vast lands of Russia.

Praise God in the Heavens (The Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op 31)

Sofia Orthodox Choir

Miroslav Popsavov (conductor)

All Night Vigil (excerpt)

St Petersburg Chamber Choir

Nikolai Korniev (conductor)

Easter (Suite No 1 for two pianos, Op 5)

Andre Previn, Vladimir Ashkenazy (pianos)

The Bells, Op 35

Alexandrina Pendachanska (soprano)

Kaludi Kaludov (tenor)

Sergei Leiferkus (baritone)

Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia

Philadelphia Orchestra

Charles Dutoit (conductor).

Like other Russian composers, Rachmaninov drew on the music of the Russian Orthodox Church

With Donald Macleod.

4/5. The Concert Pianist

When Rachmaninov found himself facing the events of the October Revolution in 1917, and the disintegration of the Old Russia he had grown up with, he felt unable to remake himself and chose emigration. Once abroad, out of necessity, he began to carve out an exhausting life touring as a concert pianist.

Etudes tableaux, No 8, Op 33; No 5, Op 39

Mikhail Pletnev (piano)

The Isle of the Dead, Op 29

St Petersburg Philharmonic

Mariss Jansons (conductor)

Variations on a theme of Corelli, Op 42

Helene Grimaud (piano)

Philharmonia Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor).

The fall of Old Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 forced Rachmaninov to emigrate.

With Donald Macleod.

5/5. Life in Exile

While living in self-imposed exile, Rachmaninov kept in touch with the artistic developments in Russia. Although he made homes in America and Europe, he always remained Russian in spirit and created his own version of his homeland wherever he lived.

The Migrant Wind, Op 34, No 4; Arion, Op 34, No 5

Joan Rodgers (soprano)

Howard Shelley (piano)

Symphonic Dances

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor)

Three Russian Songs, Op 41

Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia

Charles Dutoit (conductor).

Rachmaninov lived in America and Europe but kept in touch with Russia's artistic spirit.

For the remaining twenty-five years of his life he pursued an extraordinarily successful career as an international concert pianist and recording artist, fꀀted as one of the leading virtuosos of his or any other day. But despite this he continued to regard himself as a refugee from the homeland he would never again set foot in.

Monday's programme is set in less troubled times, eavesdropping on the teenage composer in love; the 20-year-old winning recognition from no less than Tchaikovsky for his first orchestral piece; and then, just a few years later, the disastrous premi耀re of his 1st Symphony, conducted by an inebriated Glazunov and dubbed fit 'for the inmates of Hell' by the bile-filled pen of C退sar Cui.

Donald Macleod focuses on the positive reception for Rachmaninov's first orchestral piece.

In Tuesday's programme, Rachmaninov hits a three-year creative roadblock. He visits his hero Tolstoy hoping for a pep talk, but instead finds a 'thoroughly disagreeable man'. Eventually he gets back on track with the help of a noted Moscow hypnotist, Dr Dahl, who manages to snap him out of his lethargy. Then the floodgates opened - the results included his opera Francesca da Rimini, the 2nd Piano Concerto, one of his most enduringly popular works, and the Cello Sonata - Donald Macleod introduces extracts from all of these.

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov's three-year creative block.

Wednesday's programme sees Rachmaninov and his family decamping first to Italy, then to Dresden, to escape the turmoil of the 1905 Revolution. His time in the Saxon capital doesn't sound like much of a ball - as the composer wrote to a friend, 'We live here like hermits: we see nobody, we know nobody, and we go nowhere.' Donald Macleod introduces two of Rachmaninov's songs and a complete performance of his 2nd Symphony, given a mixed reception at its premi耀re but now a firm concert-hall favourite.

Donald Macleod on Rachmaninov decamping to Dresden to escape the Russian Revolution.

Thursday's programme looks at Rachmaninov's life-long friendship with the famous Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin, and sees the composer on his first concert tour of America, where he performed his specially-written 3rd Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic conducted by their new Music Director, Gustav Mahler. Back in Russia, Rachmaninov, evidently a bit of a speed-freak, bought a new car, a Loreley, but he would only have a few years to enjoy it -it was destined, perhaps, to become the proud possession of some Bolshevik bigwig. Donald Macleod introduces extracts from three of the last works Rachmaninov composed on Russian soil.

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov's friendship with Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin.

In the concluding programme of this week, Donald Macleod looks at Rachmaninov after the Revolution - his escape to Stockholm, his passage to the United States, and the new career he built for himself there. To his constant regret it was a career that left little time for composition; 39 of Rachmaninov's 45 opuses were written before he left Russia.

Nonetheless, he created some of his best-loved music in this final phase of his life; Donald Macleod introduces the composer's own performance of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, as well as extracts from his 3rd Symphony and his Symphonic Dances in their original version for two pianos, thrillingly performed by two present-day Russian pianists, Dmitri Alexeev and Nikolai Demidenko.

Donald Macleod focuses on Rachmaninov after the Russian Revolution.

Sergey Rachmaninov's childhood was hardly typical. Born into a wealthy family with significant estates, his comfortable nine-year-old life was disrupted by his feckless father's financial collapse. The estates were sold off and the family moved to St Petersburg, but unsurprisingly his parents' marriage buckled under the strain and they separated. When Rachmaninov, now 12 and already a talented pianist, failed his school exams he was packed off to Moscow to be a live-in piano student of the aristocratic and authoritarian Nikolay Zverev, who had young Sergey and two fellow victims practising from six in the morning. In time Rachmaninov progressed to the Moscow Conservatoire and fell out with Zverev - but luckily in the meantime he had fallen in with his cousins, the Satins, whose country estate at Ivanovka, 18 hours by train from Moscow, became first a haven then a home, and the place where Rachmaninov would compose most of his music. His First Piano Concerto was one of the earliest pieces he wrote there - and it was also one of the last he wrote before leaving Russia for good 26 years later. As he said at the time, 'I have rewritten my First Concerto; it is really good now. All the youthful freshness is there, and yet it plays itself so much more easily.

Etude-tableau in A minor, Op 39 No 6

Sergey Rachmaninov, piano

Canon in E minor

Song without Words in D minor

Fugue in D minor (ed V Antipov)

Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano

Trio 退l退giaque No 1 in G minor

Beaux Arts Trio

Piano Concerto No 1 in F sharp minor, Op 1

Krystian Zimerman, piano

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Seiji Ozawa, conductor

Producer: Chris Barstow.

Donald Macleod discusses Rachmaninov's vibrant First Piano Concerto.

In March 1897, what should have been a triumphant occasion for Rachmaninov - the premi耀re of his First Symphony - turned into an unmitigated catastrophe. An under-rehearsed orchestra under the baton of a poor and, according to some accounts, inebriated conductor was enough to disadvantage the work so seriously that its composer was plunged into silence for the next three years. An encounter with the novelist Tolstoy was arranged, in the rather surprising hope that the surly old curmudgeon might be able to set the diffident young composer back on track. After that failed, the services of Dr Nikolai Dahl, a music-loving hypnotherapist, were called upon. Whatever Dahl did, it did the trick, and Rachmaninov's writer's block was spectacularly broken with his Second Piano Concerto, which quickly became a major international success.

Morceau de fantaisie in G minor

Fughetta in F

Howard Shelley, piano

Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor, Op 18

Sviatoslav Richter, piano

Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Stanislaw Wislocki, conductor

Cello Sonata in G minor, Op 19; 3rd mvt, Andante

Leonard Elschenbroich, cello

Alexei Grynyuk, piano

Suite No 2 for two pianos, Op 17; 4th mvt, Tarantella

Martha Argerich, Gabriela Montero, pianos

Producer: Chris Barstow.

Exploring the work that brought Rachmaninov global fame: his Second Piano Concerto.

Rachmaninov's songs are probably the least-known part of his output, but they're well worth exploring. The Opus 26 set was written at the behest of Mariya Kerzina, who with her wealthy lawyer husband Arkady founded the 'Circle of Russian Music Lovers in Moscow', which grew into an important and influential sponsor of new music in the first decade of the 20th century. By the time he wrote that set of songs, Rachmaninov was, like everyone else, becoming increasingly disturbed by the political unrest he could see all around him. In 1906 he took his family on an extended break in Italy in the hope that things at home might begin to settle down again. An invitation to tour America offered a further reason to stay away but for the moment, family illness prevented him from accepting. Three years later, when a second invitation came his way, he said yes. He wrote his Third Piano Concerto specially for that tour. The response was respectful rather than ecstatic, although the second performance, under the baton of none other than Gustav Mahler, prompted a warmer response from the critics. Only when Vladimir Horowitz took up the concerto in the 1930s did it begin to achieve its current popularity in the concert hall.

All was taken from me', Op 26 No 2

Rodion Pogossov, baritone

Iain Burnside, piano

Fifteen Songs, Op 26

- No 1, 'The heart's secret

- No 3, 'We shall rest

- No 10, 'At my window

- No 15, 'Everything passes

Justina Gringyte, mezzo-soprano (1)

Alexander Vinogradov, bass (3)

Ekaterina Siurina, soprano (10)

Andrei Bondarenko, baritone (15)

Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op 30

Van Cliburn, piano

Symphony of the Air

Kirill Kondrashin, conductor

Producer: Chris Barstow.

Donald Macleod discusses Rachmaninov's epic and fiendishly difficult Third Piano Concerto.

Sergey Rachmaninov spent the first two-thirds of his life in Russia. In the fateful year of 1917, at the age of 44, he realized that he must now uproot himself and his family and flee abroad. Someone from his landowning background would not have fared well under the new regime - perhaps he wouldn't have survived at all. As luck would have it he received an invitation to play a concert in Stockholm in the new year, and despite the chaos at home he managed to get permission from the authorities to travel.

He made the journey with his family, taking only what could be carried in their luggage. They made the final leg, across the Swedish border, in an open sled during a blizzard, arriving in Stockholm on Christmas Eve. Stockholm, however, was to be only a temporary resting-place. Some years earlier he had undertaken a concert tour of America, and now he decided that America was where he had the best chance of carving out a living as a concert pianist. Before the year was done, the Rachmaninovs were chugging across the Atlantic on a Norwegian steamer, arriving in New York almost a year after they had fled Russia.

Rachmaninov's first American work was the ill-fated Fourth Piano Concerto, which received a critical panning after its premi耀re and fared no better in Europe in a hastily revised version. Perhaps it just seemed too old-fashioned for the Roaring Twenties. Rachmaninov made one further revision, in 1941, but the piece still failed to capture the imagination of the concert-going public. In today's programme, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli makes an electrifying case for the work. Rachmaninov's final piece for solo piano, the Variations on a Theme of Corelli, inhabits a totally different world from the concerto. Iit has its moments of passion, but overall it's cooler, more restrained, wistful - subdued even. Rachmaninov related how in performance he would make impromptu cuts in the work, depending on the amount of audience coughing.

Rimsky Korsakov, arr Rachmaninov

Flight of the Bumble Bee (The Tale of Tsar Saltan)

Sergey Rachmaninov, piano

Piano Concerto No 4 in G minor, Op 40

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, piano

Philharmonia Orchestra

Ettore Gracis, conductor

3 Russian Songs, Op 41: 2. 'Oh Vanka, what a hothead you are

Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre

BBC Philharmonic

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op 42

Mikhail Pletnev, piano

Producer: Chris Barstow.

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 4.

After his flight to America in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninov never again returned to his homeland. He did make a partial return to Europe, though; in 1933 he was able to move into his newly built villa on the shores of Lake Lucerne, where he would spend summers until the outbreak of World War Two. The serenity of the Villa Senar (named after SErgei and NAtalya Rachmaninov), in tandem with the not unwelcome surprise of the Steinway concert grand (a housewarming gift from the company) that was waiting for him when he arrived there, got Rachmaninov's creative juices flowing again, and the following year, on Swiss soil, he wrote one of his finest and most popular pieces - a set of 24 variations on the famous 24th Caprice for solo violin by Paganini. Fast-forward six years and Rachmaninov is back in the USA, recuperating from a small operation in a secluded house he had rented on Long Island. Here, in not much more than a month, he wrote his Symphonic Dances - 'My last spark', he called them - a wonderfully affirmative swansong from a composer famous for his lugubrious manner.

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op 43

Earl Wild, piano

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Jascha Horenstein, conductor

Symphonic Dances, Op 45 (2-piano version)

Nikolai Demidenko, Dmitri Alexeev, pianos

Producer: Chris Barstow.

Donald Macleod focuses on a late Rachmaninov masterpiece: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

150 years ago this week, Sergei Rachmaninov was born: one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka - a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile.

In today's programme, Donald Macleod tells the story of Rachmaninov's first visit to Ivanovka, the country estate of his cousins, as a teenager. He initially found the landscape around it boring and oppressive, but he soon came to love this sleepy place, wrote his first Piano Concerto there, and when he got married was gifted a house on the estate.

Lilacs op 21 no 5: Siren

Sergei Rachmaninov, piano

Piano Concerto No. 1 (mvt 1)

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

Berliner Philharmoniker

Antonio Pappano, conductor

Dances from Aleko

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Vasily Petrenko, conductor

Cello Sonata in G minor (mvt 1)

Bruno Philippe, cello

Jerome Ducros, piano

Vesna

Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre

BBC Philharmonic

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov's life in exile from Russia.

150 years ago this week, Sergei Rachmaninov was born: one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka - a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile

Rachmaninov finds himself having to take on the running of the Ivanovka estate, and buys a car to zip around the surrounding countryside when it all gets a bit much. He's on the verge of buying a tractor too when the First World War breaks out - but from 1914 onwards his time at Ivanovka is running out.

15 Songs Op 26 No 10 - Before my window

Ekaterina Siurina, soprano

Iain Burnside, piano

Symphony No 2 (Mvt 2)

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor

Songs Op 34 Nos 12 and 13

Asmik Grigorian, soprano

Lukas Geniušas, piano

Piano Concerto No 3 (Mvt 1)

Yuja Wang, piano

Sim　n Bol퀀var Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

All-Night Vigil (Excerpt: 4, 5 and 6)

Latvian Radio Choir

Sigvards K?ava, conductor

Rachmaninov finds himself having to take on the running of the Ivanovka estate.

150 years ago this week, Sergei Rachmaninov was born: one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka - a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile.

Rachmaninov is forced to embark on a new full-time career as a concert pianist, through his first months as a refugee in Europe, and his passage west again, to New York. With his estate Ivanovka confiscated by the authorities after the October Revolution, the composer's first pieces written abroad contain echoes of home.

Etudes-Tableaux Op 39 No 3

Boris Giltburg, piano

Piano Concerto No 2 (Mvt 1)

Daniil Trifonov, piano

Philadelphia Orchestra

Yannick N退zet-S退guin, conductor

Etudes-Tableaux Op 39 No 6

Sergei Rachmaninov, piano

The Bells (Mvt 2)

Luba Orgon ovက, soprano

Berliner Philharmoniker

Rundfunkchor Berlin

Simon Rattle, conductor

Prelude Op. 3 No. 2

Steven Osborne, piano

Three Russian Songs

Concertgebouw Chorus

Concertgebouw Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor

Rachmaninov is forced to embark on a new full-time career as a concert pianist.

150 years ago this week, Sergei Rachmaninov was born: one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka - a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile

Rachmaninov builds a new home in Switzerland, a villa called Senar situated on the shores of Lake Lucerne, which attempts to recreate aspects of the Russian home he'd had to leave behind. This is the most settled period of his exile but it's only five years until he moves on again, in 1939, to escape another war in Europe.

Mendelssohn/ transcr. Rachmaninov: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Scherzo

Simon Trp?eski, piano

Symphony No 3 (Mvt 2)

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Vasily Petrenko, conductor

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Excerpt)

Martin James Bartlett, piano

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Joshua Weilerstein, conductor

Isle of the Dead

Sinfonia of London

John Wilson, conductor

Rachmaninov attempts to recreate his Russian home in Switzerland.

150 years ago this week, Sergei Rachmaninov was born: one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka - a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile.

Rachmaninov spent the final years of his life mixing with other emigres in Beverly Hills, while the war in Europe raged on. He played duets with his neighbour Vladimir Horowitz, visited the Disney studios, and spent as much time as he could in his garden - planting birches to remind him of his distant homeland. Three decades after his death in 1943, the house and gardens at Ivanovka in Russia would be restored as a memorial to the composer.

John Stafford Smith: The Star-Spangled Banner (transcription by Rachmaninov)

Sergei Rachmaninov, piano

Corelli Variations (Excerpt)

Daniil Trifonov, piano

Symphonic Dances (Mvt III)

Berliner Philharmoniker

Sir Simon Rattle, conductor

Suite No 2 for Two Pianos (Mvt III and IV)

Martha Argerich, piano

Gabriela Montero, piano

The Bells op.35 (Mvt IV)

Alexey Markov, bass

Bavarian Radio Chorus

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Mariss Jansons, conductor

Donald Macleod explores the final chapter of Rachmaninov's life - in California.