Original subtitles

Rachmaninoff for me is a very important repertoire for any

pianist.

Somehow the breath is taken away.

I've seen people in tears after performances of this music.

I go

Rachmaninoff has some incredibly gruelling music to play.

It's, uh, like an Everest, uh, for the pianist to perform

it.

If you play Rachmaninoff

you are OK. If you want to play Brahms, it means, Ah, your technique

is probably not so good. So you want to avoid really serious pieces.

It's always on edge.

It has everything that maybe Russian soul desires.

His genius was a great part of Russian life. Russian

culture,

like Russian would say a lot of meat but

juicy meat in the sound.

I don't believe that you have to be Russian.

You just need to be a human being.

Of course, it would help enormously to feel that I know

him a bit. I try to get inside the composer's

mind. If it's at all possible, we need to discover

more

what made him write this way or another.

His spirit is always with me behind my

shoulders.

I am a Russian composer.

The land of my birth has influenced my temperament and outlook.

My music is the product of my temperament, and so

it is Russian music.

If I listen to Rachmaninoff, I can hear something

which is very hard to describe.

I can see the Russian nature.

He was born not far from Saint Petersburg,

that nature is incredible.

Endless fields, forests and

rivers and lakes

being born in Russia. I'm thrilled to be

able to understand

what beauty he's talking about. Because II I witnessed that all

those landscapes

and the countryside

and the kindness of people.

Every Russian feels strong ties to the soil.

Perhaps it comes from an instinctive need for solitude,

the smell of the earth and all that grows and blossoms.

Even when I left Russia, my music was inspired by being there.

My father drank, enjoyed his women and gambled,

and soon we were forced to sell our estate and move to

temporary accommodation in the great city of Saint Petersburg.

My mother blamed my father for our slum like circumstances.

Shortly afterwards, she left him and I never saw my

father again.

He was a troubled kid whose family was going through the

divorce and was separated, and that was not a normal thing at

that time, so he was greatly depressed.

But he was still lucky because people noticed his talent.

And then he was sent to music school.

He was moving in wonderful, exciting

musical circles,

and he became who he became

Rachmaninoff's first Piano Concerto, which he wrote when he was 17. And it's his

Opus One, and it was a huge success.

The Muscovites loved it, the bit

Imagine. Suddenly everyone begins to love me

passionately. Everyone invites me. Everyone asked me to

stay at his place. Everyone wants to see me.

I was indeed born under a lucky star.

And then suddenly, after all this love from everyone,

his first Symphony was criticized. They just hated it. Rachmaninoff

had this terrible tragedy. It was his first symphony premiere.

It was a huge failure.

Conductor was drunk for the

rehearsal. He was drunk for the first performance.

The press was terrible and everybody said it's s disaster. No,

this man is no good.

I hid during the entire performance. I refused to come on stage

at the end and fled into the night.

I was unable to compose again. For almost three years,

I felt like a man who had suffered a stroke and for a long

time had lost the use of his head and hands.

It was really quite a desperate struggle,

and so he had to find help

through therapy.

Although it may sound incredible,

this cure really helped me.

By the beginning of summer, I again began to compose,

and when I did begin again well, you know what that was?

My second Piano concerto.

The therapy went really well

music of the second Rachmaninoff It's kind of like resurrection of Rachmaninoff's

soul.

There are some parts where you really feel like soaring above the

ground. For example, in the third movement, the second

theme

this feeling of unconditional happiness and joy

was exactly what I was also feeling when I was

paragliding,

which later comes as the main climax of the Concerto.

OK, so I go right?

I mean, I don't think that Rachmaninoff was paragliding, but

definitely he starts to feel joy again.

For me, Rachmaninoff was always number one as a

pianist and all, I think, great artists who played

piano last century. He made influence on

everybody. Sometimes he had so many concerts. Being a

pianist, he sometimes didn't have time even to

compose, so I'm sure he was improvising a lot.

It feels that he was sitting somewhere. I

don't know, maybe in a bar with the piano and just

improvised smoking a cigarette.

Maybe I played this concerto more than 200 times

and every time, like short time

and in the last time because this is fantastic

basis for improvisation.

When I play with Tim Orano, I don't know what will happen during the

performance. This is the intrigue

for each performance when I play Rachmaninoff's music

because Rachmaninoff's music has that feeling, we need to have that

improvisatory quality. It should seem totally natural.

Well, the project that we did with the London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilton Thomas and

Dudley Moore. I think about Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto was

quite a an opus,

and we had to synchronise what we had done in the studio. We had to

synchronise it there and then, and that's tough because when you're a

musician, every time you play it, it's slightly different. You want to be creative and imaginative,

but you couldn't. You have to be absolutely rock solid and just

make sure that your fingers went down at the right moment to sync to the playback.

The beginning, the chords at the beginning were very tough to do.

We had to do it over and over again until I played it. Played it in the right place.

His melodies are not easily hummable because it

never ends, and when you feel like you have to take a breath, the

new wave comes and it never ends. It never stops

Russian music Rachmaninoff

Tchaikovsky whoever base it very much

on vocal expression on vocal breathing. You know this is

unending, long, long phrase because

you pass it through your throat.

He had

a particular talent for writing a beautiful

melody

that

didn't come from just air. It came from depths of

Russia,

depth of suffering and happiness and

sadness. The beginning of the third piano concert is

so beautiful and so simple at the same time.

Somehow it's irresistible,

the second theme the same way, but in

slightly different textures.

I remember when I was 15. I was absolutely

mesmerised by that because my parents got me a recording.

I was still in the Tashkent. If you ask me, then What was the piece? I

would like to play most. I would say it's Rachmaninoff 3 and I think it

goes to all the young people. Somehow. It is appealing to the young

generation, maybe because of its romanticism

or melodies or melancholy or just

sheer display of virtuosity.

There is so much to say in it. There is

tragedy, drama, love, passion,

sadness, happiness. Everything is in that music

in the first movement. Uh, his cadenza, his big cadenza is

very important. It's like a culmination of the whole piece, a

tragic culmination.

That's where real pain and suffering comes in. You know all

this sadness. All this depression comes there.

How does he call this magical diagnosis?

Bipolar. Yes, it's bipolar, right?

It's from.... he probably was bipolar in a way, at least in

music

there are deep abyss, like in the second movement where

music is just so desperate, so dark. And

yet 10 minutes later, this huge ecstasy

you know Rachmaninoff, to me, was a composer prophet.

In his music. I always feel there is this unrest

about

upcoming catastrophe.

Dark time is coming.

I fear another crash.

Everything around me affects me so that I can't work.

Everyone advises me to leave Russia.

Is it possible?

He was one of few who immediately understood

what happened. He had no illusions. Old

Russia was replaced by these cruel Bolsheviks and

this red terror. Of course, the biggest sorrow for him was just

to leave Russia like this.

Fearing the worst, we had set sail for a new life.

I was 44 years old, homeless and in debt.

I spoke not a word of the language.

How would I manage?

My wife and I settled first in an apartment block by the Hudson River

a far cry from Ivanovka.

When he moved to United States, he had a big

crisis. Also, as a composer, he didn't try it for a very long time.

And for some time he was an enemy of the whole country.

And I remember my grandfather was saying that he needed to, uh,

keep Rachmaninov's score in some, uh, hidden places because

he was an enemy of the country and you couldn't perform and

couldn't even say his name.

This constant, nostalgic idea. Painful idea of losing something so

dear and losing with no chance of recovery.

I think that kept him

being sort of stuck

for this whole time. I have not composed one line.

I only play the piano and give a great many concerts.

When he was not as successful with his compositions, he could play

recitals, so he always had a great followings as

either pianist or the conductor.

He could do anything, you know, huge, uh, for the

huge sound,

then really

Pianissimo, that soft, incredible, fragile sound.

If I don't know who play after three seconds, I say This is by Rachmaninoff

he plays like a real aristocrat.

If you belong to upper class, you were not supposed

to wear your emotions on your sleeve. Yes, he was suffering. He had bouts of

depression, but in his flame he was never look at me. Look how

unhappy I am. Look, I'm suffering. No, it's

Some people would describe it as cold, but under the

cold, it gives you really goosebumps because it's a cold

flame.

He recorded these concertos in a very straight, clean and mean

style because he wanted to show that you can't pull it around. You can't do this

huge Rubato.

The music has to be you know like you would treat Mozart or Beethoven. It has to be treated

with respect.

I played well and I'm pleased with myself.

But the critics are sour.

What does it mean? What did I do to them?

His compositions were not very welcome. Critics were quite

indifferent as a decadent composer. Now we have

this super modern style, but

he still writing the 19th

century way. He didn't really change so much

into the modern wave of where the music was

going.

Even though Schoenberg was starting with 12 tone music and atonlism,

Rachmaninoff wasn't interested in new language. He wanted to keep it

very much tonal.

He proposed to record all his recitals

live in Carnegie Hall.

A recording company was not interested to do it.

He won't sell it.

Not a single video footage of him

playing or conducting. Nothing

shame.

I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien.

I cannot cast out the old way of writing, and I cannot acquire the

new.

But the main thing is that I can't change. Nor do I wish

to.

Little did I know that I was to give over 1000 concerts in

America alone over the next 10 years,

the only thing that suffered was my composition,

not a single line.

But the money was good.

What a bourgeois become.

He complained it many times saying, You know, I cannot compose

the way I want to be, but to say that he was only depressed, that it

would be totally unfair.

He met with Russian people in America

with his friends.

I employed a Russian secretary, a Russian cook, and because

I had failed my American driving test, a Russian chauffeur.

We all spoke Russian together, observed Russian customs and

surrounded ourselves with Russian friends, some of whom already lived

here and some of whom joined us in exile.

Sometimes he cried,

because he missed his home.

But nothing could give us back what we most desired.

Our homeland

America gave me material security,

but America could not give me peace of mind.

I had been performing throughout America for 16 years.

The need to find a more permanent home now became urgent,

and through a friend, I found a site by Lake Lucerne

hidden in the mountains of Switzerland.

I shall build a house here and call it

"Senar"

for Sergei and my wife, Natalia Rachmaninoff

here I believe I shall find peace at last.

Senar is Rachmaninoff's mansion near Lucerne.

Fantastic place. Absolutely.

I fell in love with the view Immediately when I saw it,

I kept imagining what it would be like to have my own music room with

big windows. For such a view,

the Russian

birch in Senar remind him about his

house, about his land, about his childhood, about his

incredible village. Uh Ivanov, near Tambov

Senar is a very, very similar place

in future. I intend to limit the number of my concerts

or find some cure for old age.

The only place to be now is Senar

Life was not so bad.

The act of making art

is hopeful.

Just the mere fact that you are attempting to

make something beautiful out of trying

experiences in your life.

It's a first step.

I've kept myself at work writing literally from morn to night. As

they say.

The work is rather a large one. And only yesterday late

at night, I finished it.

It is called symphonic Variations on a theme by

Paganini.

You're actually feeling like you're not playing a concerto for piano in the orchestra, but you're

being part of the orchestra.

He loved Gershwin. He loved jazz.

Of course, jazz music influenced him during the American period.

For example, the Paganini variation,

the rhythmical, um, (inaudible).

He was not quite with gloomy, depressed Russia

who is so brooding about his motherland.

He has one variation. The eight inspiration.

It was the most beautiful melody probably he ever wrote

in his life.

It's like his goodbye, because it was the last piece

he wrote for piano.

It's amazing that you can see so much trauma and so much

heartbreak, and then finally look back on it all

and just see there's so much beauty.

I think the story of

Rachmaninoff is kind of at its heart, a story of

triumph,

triumph over pain and sadness.

Rhapsody in Paganini I feel like it's a story about a person

from beginning a verse till the end, and

then in the last bar, he's asking us

what's next.

They will praise me, as others are praised only after I

die when everyone does it.

Yes, he is famous, and people quite often

unfairly accuse him of being Hollywood kind of

composer.

Beautiful melodies sweet melody. A lot of critics things like

that.

Rachmaninoff is not serious composer,

and the music was taken slower and slower and making more schmaltz.

The danger with Rachmaninoff has always been that people use it for their own

purposes, and they sensationalise the music to get

more applause.

Now, in general, everything is very visual

style makes us go to Music Hall

and see some sort of a show.

Mhm.

You can suddenly go very slowly and and very quietly

and and look up to the ceiling.

They're not actually going to the essence of the music, which is so incredibly

clean and strong. And, you know, I'm kind of fine

with that, even though Rachmaninoff was very subdued and very intense when

he performed, we've even been told, you know, after our performances, what do you

do? Why are you moving like that? Why are you thinking about when your face is looking at the ceiling?

If that's what our generation or a younger generation is offering,

so be it. They're trying to do something new.

There are some times in

Rachmaninoff where you can't help but be a little sentimental.

In the end, the audience's access to their

music is through the performer, and the performer's access to the music

is through their own life experience.

After we give a concert or after we've spoken about some of the

hard times in our lives, a lot of people come up to us and like, Well, what

keeps you guys sane and normal? What do you feel like has

gotten you through these really, really trying times in your life?

The only thing I can really attribute it to is the power of music.

Rachmaninoff

is not a composer.

Rachmaninoff,

He is not a pianist.

Rachmaninoff

is a spirit

genius, absorbs so many things

and then can result in one simple musical

composition.

How it happened.

I don't know

what is music.

How can one define it?

Music is born only in the heart, and it appeals

only to the heart.

Music is enough for a whole lifetime,

but a lifetime is not enough for music.