As a human being Rachmaninoff was a greatly misunderstood man. It
was bound to happen and the world cannot be blamed for not knowing what
it is not permitted to know. Rachmaninoff's forbidding manner and
gaunt face with the stern sorrows of the ages engraved upon it created
the impression of a creature not of our time or kind, but rather one from
some historical era of past glories which he alone seemed to remember.
He was far from unconscious of the muck of the world. He simply chose
to remain aloof from it.
Warmth, concern and consideration for others would appear to be unexpected qualities in Rachmaninoff's nature in the opinion of all who knew him superficially. But members of his family and old friends knew better. On them he lavished all these qualities and to a sentimental degree.
Even some new friends came to know him as he really was. For several years I had corresponded with him, spoken perhaps a dozen times to him over the phone and had visited him in his New York apartment. Although I had occasion to discover that his gloomy countenance and misanthropic behavior were protective devices, our relations remained professional rather than social until I met him again at a Christmas gathering at Steinway's in 1937. The press had just published an announcement of my forthcoming appearance with the New York Philharmonic under Barbirolli as soloist in my second piano concerto. "Who practices with you your concerto?" asked Rachmaninoff. When I answered that the orchestra parts had not yet been reduced to a second piano version and I was therefore practicing alone, he said quickly, "But that is impossible. Send me the score. I will look it over and practice with you."
Sure enough, two weeks later he came to my studio, sat down at the second piano and worked with me for some four hours. I really came to know him that day. His meticulous workmanship was again demonstrated in the perfection with which he knew and played the orchestra part. He exacted the utmost precision from himself and from me. Over and over and over again we practiced some thorny passage, crawling along at a painfully slow pace. He was unsparingly generous with suggestions both compositional and pianistic, all with supreme tact and a gentle humor.
Oh, yes. Rachmaninoff had a sense of humor. Fritz Kreisler told the story which emanated from one of their joint recitals in New York. It seems that Kreisler had a momentary lapse of memory during the concert. He edged over toward the piano and whispered to Rachmaninoff, "Where are we?" Rachmaninoff never skipped a note as he answered, "In Carnegie Hall!"
English speech was not too easy for him generally, but he understood our language perfectly and would guffaw gleefully at radio jokes told in dialect. He enjoyed our radio comedians and was a devoted fan of Jack Benny. Rachmaninoff spoke enthusiastically and knowingly of our musical comedies, but our drama was not for him. He remembered another kind of theater.
He was as thrilled as a child at the circus when the Moscow Art Company
came to New York in 1923. Each performance found Rachmaninoff there,
tears of happiness streaming from his eyes while those gigantic hands wiped
them from his face. Every spare moment was spent at informal gatherings
with the superb artists of the cast who were his old friends:
Stanislavsky, who headed the company, actors Kachalov and Moskvin, and
the actress Knipper-Chekhova, widow of Rachmaninoff's favorite dramatist.
Also present at those sessions which lasted until the small hours were
Rachmaninoff's cousin, Alexander Siloti, and their intimate friend, Chaliapin.
In this atmosphere, Rachmaninoff was the man the world didn't know. Carefree and gay, he roared at stories, told some himself, then would go to the piano to accompany Chaliapin in Russian folk songs by the hour. The voluntary exile from Bolshevik Russia remained Russian to the end. Although he came to love our country, he was always homesick. Occasions like these brought him back to his heart's home.
Otherwise, Rachmaninoff's life was one of sporadic composition and constant concertizing in a succession of triumphs. No life flows without difficulties, of course, but apart from the artist's inner despair over unrealized ideals, Rachmaninoff appears to have emerged victorious from his artistic and personal battles and was spared most of the minor irritations of daily living by the devotion of his remarkable wife.
The tumultuous circumstances surrounding Rachmaninoff's marriage to his first cousin, Natalie Satin, gave no hint of the eventual stability of their domestic life. The mere engagement announcement shattered family, friends, civic and religious authorities alike. One barrier after another had to be removed until final permission from High Moguls of Church and State enabled the pair to consummate their marriage in 1902. Mrs. Rachmaninoff's strength of character, fine judgment of people and solid intelligence were all used to serve her husband with rare devotion and self-effacement. She created for him the conditions of equilibrium which are theoretically regarded to be destructive to the creative powers.
Whatever comforts were provided for the man, however, were sufficiently counterbalanced by the artist's essential dissatisfaction with his work. Rachmaninoff was a dedicated and driven perfectionist. He worked incessantly. I never knew an artist who worked with such infinite patience. Once, I had an appointment to spend a day with him in Hollywood. Arriving at the appointed hour of noon, I heard an occasional piano sound as I approached the cottage. I stood outside the door, unable to believe my ears. Rachmaninoff was practicing Chopin's Etude in Thirds, but at such a snail's pace that it took a while to recognize it because so much time elapsed between each finger stroke. Fascinated, I clocked this remarkable exhibition; twenty seconds per bar was his pace for almost an hour while I waited riveted to the spot, quite unable to ring the bell. Perhaps this way of developing and maintaining an unerring mechanism accounted for his bitter sarcasm toward colleagues who practices their programs "once over, lightly" between concerts.
At luncheon that day Rachmaninoff surprised me by his lively curiosity about composers and orchestrators of popular music, radio personalities and movie stars. The only name he mentioned in the field of serious music was that of his favorite pianist among his contemporaries, Josef Hofmann, about whom he inquired very specifically and solicitously. I found it strange, for Hofmann's Los Angeles home was no more than a ten-minute drive from Rachmaninoff's quarters at the Garden of Allah. His conversational references to his manager, Charles Foley, showed an unexpected tenderness. His eyes actually filled as he described the man who guided his career since 1918 and who had become his closest and most trusted friend.
Knowing Rachmaninoff's enthusiasm for motoring, I suggested late that afternoon an automobile drive in an Isotta-Fraschini -- one of those fantastic Italian cars loaned to me by my California host for this auspicious pilgrimage. He accepted eagerly and kept exclaiming excitedly over the car's performance. When we got to Santa Monica, he couldn't hold out any longer and asked if he could drive it. At the wheel, he displayed from the first moment the same precisional coordination and rhythmic rightness of his piano mastery.
At the keyboard, this flawless mastery was placed entirely at the service of Rachmaninoff's tonal expressivity and scrupulous sense of motion and design. No sooner than one reflects that perhaps the most fabulous aspects of his playing were his melodic eloquence and dramatic virtuosity, one remembers the unique rhythmic bite is sustained, short or syncopated accentuation, or his way of orchestrating chords with special beauty through individual distributions of balances and blendings. Rachmaninoff brought as much art to the performance of his own works, and those of others, as was brought to their creation.
Rachmaninoff, the composer, never sought that easy kind of originality
which stems from an avoidance of the natural. He understood the paradox
of art through which the creator communicates basic generic truths in a
highly personal way. Even those committed to "modernism" as a faith
in itself have not failed to become enticed and impressed by the lyric
and dramatic qualities of his work. It is supposed to be very clever
these days to cast doubts upon the sincerity of a composer whose language
is Romanticism. Sincerity by itself is not the full measure of the
value of an artist's work, but the integrity of a man whose music speaks
the very soul of rapture and in his own way is not to be questioned.
The point is that Rachmaninoff was no iconoclast. When his critics accuse him of not expressing the world in the way of his contemporaries, they speak truly. But Rachmaninoff's world was his own, like that of all true artists; his work was an expression of himself, and that self was a product of his times on his own terms. Compositionally, his idiom was certainly not stylish. Neither was J.S. Bach's, for that matter. There is no greater test of a composer's craft and imagination than his ability to take ideas that are not by themselves startlingly new and to make them his own, bag and baggage. Very few of the classic composers could stand up against the critical norm used for newer music. Every piece of Schumann is not a masterpiece or entirely his own creation. We remember this apologetically as though we were committing a crime in recognizing the fact that Schumann was sometimes a dependent man as well as a visionary genius. We should feel it stupid to spend time on pointing out a classic's lapses when we could be listening to his inspirations. Let us do the same for our contemporaries.
Rachmaninoff's music has spoken and continues to speak to an enormous audience. Performing musicians and the public alike adore his compositions. Only the avant-garde view it with a somewhat jaundiced eye although admitting its emotional power. Personally, I have what these colleagues consider a sinful affinity for Rachmaninoff's beautiful thematic ideas and a shameful admiration for his capacity to develop them so luxuriantly.
The public, and it is rarely wrong, has chosen for its favorites among Rachmaninoff's works for piano and orchestra his Second and Third Concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody. I agree, and would only add that in the composer's performances of the First and Fourth Concertos there are examples of sheer pianistic wizardry that are astounding even for Rachmaninoff.
Prophecy being vain, the facts remain: the long view of posterity is not concerned with the degree to which this or that work was abreast of its time; that which is important to its own time need not worry about being important for all time, for in the light of history it is an extremely strong likelihood that it will be. Rachmaninoff's work is a vital part of our musical history, and it is wonderful to have so much of it interpreted by his magical pianistic art and in collaboration with the conductors [Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski] and orchestra [Philadelphia Orchestra] he admired so warmly.
In all phases of his artistic activities Rachmaninoff made a genuine contribution to twentieth century music. The composer was always popular, but never a la mode. No better indication exists that he will not grow outmoded.
- From Liner Notes from Rachmaninoff: The Four Piano Concertos, RCA
Red Seal LM-6123.
a
Abram Chasins (1903-1987) was
one of the most versatile figures in music in the early and mid-twentieth
century. A concert pianist from 1927 until 1947, he later devoted
himself to radio, recording, composing, lecturing at leading universities
and writing articles for various publications, including a regular column
for the Saturday Review's music issues. He was formerly a Music Director
of WQXR in New York.
