Rachmaninoff 150 in an interview with Pianist and Professor William Fong

This year’s April 1st marked the 150th birth anniversary of Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the few musicians who achieved equal eminence as composer, conductor and international concert pianist.

An aristocrat child prodigy, Rachmaninoff entered the Moscow Conservatory at the age of 12 to study piano and composition. During his childhood, he lost two sisters due to illnesses and his father, a retired army officer, left him after he lost the entire family fortune through risky financial ventures. He was raised by his maternal grandmother with particular focus on their religious life. The family deaths in his early years and the connection to Orthodox liturgy and chant had a strong impact on him and his music: “The sound of bells dominated all the cities of Russia I used to know. They accompanied every Russian from childhood to grave and no composer could escape their influence.”

In 1897, following his disastrous premiere of Symphony No. 1, he entered a depression that lasted for three years, composing almost nothing, until supportive therapy allowed him to complete his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. He raised money by giving piano lessons, which he hated.

In 1902, he married Natalia Satina, his first cousin, despite the opposition of the Orthodox Church. In 1903, his first child was born. During the Bolshevik Revolution, he used his recital tour in Scandinavia as an opportunity to leave the country. He never returned.

Broke and needing an immediate income for his family, he knew performing would financially top conducting or composing, so he spent his next 25 years as a celebrated concert pianist, producing just six further opuses, one of them being the famous Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, written at his home in Lucerne in 1934. He composed most of his major works in Russia. His homesickness and nostalgia reflected in his music: “I left behind my desire to compose: losing my country, I lost myself also.”

Until he left Russia (at 44 years old), he was best known as a composer and conductor — his first important conducting post was two seasons (1904-1906) with the Bolshoi Theatre.

Throughout his life, he was rewarded with extraordinary encounters — from his Conservatoire teachers to Tchaikovsky, Chaliapin, Tolstoi, hypnotherapist Nikolai Dahl, Vladimir Horowitz etc. He was haunted by illness: he contracted malaria, Spanish flu and various others in between. He struggled with depression and had little faith in his work. He once told Horowitz that he was always just about to burst out in tears. By 1942, his declining health led him to move to a warmer climate, in Beverly Hills, California, where he died from melanoma in 1943.

A sensational virtuoso himself, he’s one of the few composer-pianists to leave behind an entire interpretive legacy in his recordings. At six foot six — literally a music giant — it is believed he had Marfan syndrome: this could have given him the ability to hold incredible ranges on the piano.

Tchaikovsky had come to play the role of mentor and father figure to Rachmaninoff when he was a student. Rachmaninoff’s music took on many of Tchaikovsky’s characteristics. Both of them are praised as classical music’s most romantic Russian composers. Regarding the modern take on music, he used to say that being a changemaker means “to create not from the heart, but from the head.”

This year, the Canton of Lucerne in collaboration with Rachmaninoff Foundation opens Rachmaninoff’s newly restored home Villa Senar on the shores of Lake Lucerne to the public (for the first time!) as a Cultural and Educational Centre with a program of performances, masterclasses and talks.

Some highlights of the birthday celebrations worldwide include Yuja Wang’s (once-in-a-lifetime!) Rachmaninoff marathon at the Carnegie Hall alongside Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babayan’s duo recital (which I had the chance to attend at the Wiener Konzerthaus on the 3rd of May).

On the 29th of May, I had the pleasure of listening to some very talented young pianists from Purcell School, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Dinu Lipatti National College of Art in an all-Rachmaninoff programme at ARCUB Bucharest. The performance was part of their tour in the UK (London & Glasgow), Italy (Verona & Brescia) and Romania (Bucharest & Brașov).

The programme consisted of Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 16; Bach/Rachmaninoff Violin Partita in E Major; Scherzo (Mendelssohn Midsummer Night’s Dream), Op. 61; Études-Tableaux, Op. 33; Élégie and Serenade, Op. 3, no. 1&5; Liebesfreud, (Kriesler Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen) 1925.

The young pianists were accompanied by William Fong, Professor at the Royal Academy of Music and Head of Keyboard Department at the Purcell School for Young Musicians. I talked to Mr. Fong about the legacy of Rachmaninoff and what does it mean to champion Russian composers. Rachmaninoff’s musical career unfolds in a very interesting and unique blend of talent, virtuosity, creative brilliance, life story marked of loss and failure as much as of wealth and triumphs, illness, depression, death anxiety and historical context. We discussed about how his creative vision changed and evolved through it all.

Mr. Fong, congratulations on putting together such a delightful musical celebration and thank you for taking the time to talk to me! Tell me more about the Classical Spring Festival: Rachmaninoff Piano Works and its programme.

Zoe, it’s very good to meet and talk with you. To give you some background, for many years, The Purcell School for gifted young musicians has organised the Classical Spring Piano Festival project in various forms, most often in London, Scotland and Italy, and lately reaching out also to Germany and Romania. The festival is a showcase for our piano students to work together in a collaborative manner on large piano works as well as to meet and perform in new venues, for new audiences and with new partners – this year we worked with students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Dinu Lipatti National College and performed at the RCS International Piano Festival, Brescia Talent Music Masters University of Music, Verona National Piano Festival, ARCUB Bucharest and Brașov Filarmonica.

Each year, the festival develops a common theme. This year, of course, with Rachmaninoff’s 150th anniversary, his piano music. Previous years it has been, for example, Second Viennese School, French Impressionism, Miscellaneous works of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, Complete Chopin Études and Préludes, Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky, Beethoven Bagatelles and Diabelli variations with each pianist taking two or three variations. All the works are played as complete cycles with each pianist presenting one work from the oeuvres. The intention is to have our young talented students exposed to large works played collaboratively, give them a taste, a context and, hopefully from that, learn the complete works in the future!

The preparation for the recitals usually starts at the very end of the Autumn semester just before the students leave school for the winter holidays when I distribute the repertoire to the pianists to learn over the school break as a kind of early Christmas present...!!!!! It’s always fascinating to see how each pianist has worked on their own away from school and the results when they return in January to start presenting the repertoire in faculty class! Whether they have concentrated solely on their own piece or have been motivated to look further around the rest of the repertoire to give context to the interpretation. What I hope to encourage, as part of the project, is a sense of musical curiosity to discover music beyond the immediate repertoire that has been set for a student by their individual professor. It isn’t generally possible for a young pianist to learn all Rachmaninoff Études-Tableaux in one go but with this project they get to know each other’s étude and the complete opus vicariously! Hopefully, it will inspire them to, one day, learn the complete works.

I am always keen to collaborate with other institutions and we are extremely lucky to have strong links with the RCS (Aaron Shorr), Brescia (Paolo Baglieri), Dinu Lipatti School (Venera Babeș), ARCUB (Mihaela Păun), Brașov (Ioan Dragoș Dimitriu) and the Piano Star Project (Otilia Frolu). The Purcell School invites students from other schools to join and work together with us during the festival. In this vein, the Purcell School also invites guest professors, leading exponents in their field. This year, Petras Geniušas, Graeme McNaught and Dmitri Alexeev were those experts revealing the inner workings of Rachmaninoff through individual lessons and collective masterclasses. It is a wonderfully energetic experience and collaborative environment where pianists can explore the repertoire immersively during a very intense few days at the premises of the Purcell School. This is the “cooking” section of the festival quickly followed by the performances on those international stages.

Have the students enjoyed their time here? What did you like most about the Romanian experience?

The Purcell School believes it is incredibly important for the students to have the opportunity to present the programme outside of their usual experience at school or in the UK. The reception from the audiences in Italy and Romania was very enthusiastic and warm. Travelling abroad provides a different dimension which is usually an exciting team building opportunity; a time when all students – coming from many countries – play and share their wider interests ranging from philosophy to paragliding! It is always refreshing to be part of a young crowd and hear how they link all these diverse interests.

The students very much enjoyed the different culture, delicious food and stimulating environment in Romania. It was great for them to be able to meet other young musicians in Romania and share their different experiences. I have to say we were immensely grateful to Venera Babeș at Dinu Lipatti College to be so supportive and help with allowing our students to practise at her school.

This is a Rachmaninoff year. We’ve been watching worldwide celebrations for the iconic composer. Have you enjoyed a concert in particular? Do you have a favorite Rachmaninoff interpreter?

We were very lucky to have as part of our concerts and visit to RCS during their International Piano Festival the opportunity to hear Nikolai Lugansky give one of the concerts of his series presenting the complete works of Rachmaninoff this year. The programme was Préludes, Op. 23, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 and Études-tableaux, Op. 39. It was an astonishing performance that was powerfully ethereal and transcendental, on a symphonic scale, profoundly moving without artifice. In many ways, very close in spirit and execution to Rachmaninoff’s own recordings of his music.

I imagine that relationships with composers change over time, I wonder how your relationship with Rachmaninoff has evolved since your early beginnings? What was your first experience with the music of Rachmaninoff?

I imagine like many, my first conscious memory of Rachmaninoff was hearing Ashkenazy’s beautiful recording of the Second Piano Concerto when I was quite young, probably 8 years old. It seemed like the pinnacle of piano writing even then. Harmonically, lyrically and expressively rich with an astounding pianism that for me, at that age seemed heroic and certainly way way unattainable! It was time to get more serious about all those “boring” technical exercises and also start Chopin Études... I remember well, later in my early teens, being captivated by Richter’s recording of the same concerto and it was about this time that I discovered that Rachmaninoff had also recorded this concerto and many other of his own works; it was a revelation to hear. Playing that was that, on one hand, embraced the rich traditions of the late nineteenth century yet, at the same time, seemed “modern” eschewing much of the excess that sometimes coloured the style of playing at the beginning of the twentieth century. Not only that, but partly because of these recordings, I was motivated to discover more about historic recordings in general; not always easy pre-youtube etc in the 1970/80s...!

Rachmaninoff and his music are still up for discussion — some call him late romantic, some say his music is undeniably modern, whilst others say he was an outlier in classical music’s embrace of modernism and the avant-garde. Was he really stuck in the past? Let’s give a look to the very early, middle and later Rachmaninoff. Can you describe his musical language and style?

Without question, Rachmaninoff’s musical language is an evolution of his musical and cultural environment. In most if not all of his works, it is clear to hear that his writing has elements of Tchaikovsky in terms of harmony, texture and melody. In terms of a composer and pianist there were four notable professors that tutored him whilst at the Moscow Conservatory; Zverev and Siloti for piano, Arensky and Taneyev for composition and counterpoint. As with all pianist composers and, in Rachmaninoff’s case, conductor, the disciplines of playing and writing feed into each other. There is a very natural fluency to his sometimes very dense contrapuntal writing which requires the highest technical mastery of the instrument and artistry to allow the music to speak in a transparent, clear and eloquent manner. The Symphonic Dances, one of the handful of works he wrote after leaving Russia for the USA, might be considered to embrace very twentieth century characteristics of sharp concise orchestration and sometimes brutal rhythmic impetus. Interestingly, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky would know each other a few years later in LA when they both lived there in the 1940s.

Rachmaninoff was also a leading piano virtuoso of his time. We tend to talk about him mainly as a composer. How can you describe his piano playing?

Ethereal, aristocratic, eloquent and succinct. Beyond words really…!!!

Tell us what place Rachmaninoff holds for you in the Russian pantheon.

Rachmaninoff is an equally important figure in Russian/Soviet twentieth century music as Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev to name a few. Perhaps because Stravinsky was not a pianist as a performer his compositional output is less focused on piano works than Rachmaninoff. Indeed, the Stravinsky we hear most often played in piano recitals tends to be transcriptions of his ballet music, Petrushka and the Firebird, for example.

Do you choose or do you encourage your students to choose Rachmaninoff when creating a competition programme?

The piano repertoire is so very rich and varied it depends on the context of the programme as a whole whether to include Rachmaninoff as with any of the other major composers for piano in a competition programme. In the right hands, Rachmaninoff can illuminate a pianist's artistic, intellectual and technical strengths.

Russian soul in music. Philosophical and psychological pieces need to undergo a long-term thought process. What is your approach when both studying and teaching Russians — Rachmaninoff in particular?

That’s a good question; not easy to answer. In broad terms, to understand the symphonic aspect of Rachmaninoff’s writing structurally, harmonically and texturally is very important. The lyricism we so enjoy emerges from that organically. In practical terms, listening to Mravinsky conducting Tchaikovsky gives a good indication to approaching the music. Russians have a sort of “classical” regard for Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff in a similar manner to the Germans for Beethoven. For pianists, the left hand is very important in Rachmaninoff, both in terms of contrapuntal clarity and harmonic colouring. This also has a profound impact on how we view the pedalling. Rachmaninoff, as with the great pianist and his contemporary, Josef Hoffman dedicatee of the Third Concerto but who never performed it, both use surprisingly little pedal at times. But when they do it is to enormous effect. Without a fantastic left hand, the material in the right hand will struggle to flow and breathe properly. To know where the apex of the work lies for the listener to be led on a journey to and away from that point through a coherent narrative; like a good movie!

The myth of large hands — many pianists believe they cannot play Rachmaninoff’s music because of the physical demands it places on the player. Daniil Trifonov said in an interview that Rachmaninoff’s music requires flexible shoulders and the engagement of the entire upper half of the body. He practiced the opening of the Second Piano Concerto in a swimming pool. By imagining a keyboard in the pool and moving his arms through the water, he became very aware of the distances between notes — realizing what effort it takes to travel from one point to another. What are the most common fears when playing Rachmaninoff? Physical versus emotional demands — technique versus interpretation. A big enough hand stretch or expressive freedom and how can one achieve them? How can one reveal the full range of Rachmaninoff’s music?

Hmmm. For sure it can help if one possesses large hands but, in the end, it is not an absolute necessity. There are and have been many great interpreters of Rachmaninoff who have relatively small hands; Cherkassky and Pletnev, for example. Much more important is to have a technique that is at one with the artistic gestures required for the music. Mental and emotional stamina are also key, although when one is performing the adrenalin and excitement propels us and it is only at the end of the performance when the energy spent and stamina required hit us!

For many, Rachmaninoff means his Second Piano Concerto, by far his most frequently played and recorded work. What’s your favorite Rachmaninoff composition and why?

I much prefer his Third Concerto. It feels like a much more terse and focused composition that is stimulating intellectually and emotionally in equal measure.

Tell us some best Rachmaninoff recordings.

There are many! Rachmaninoff himself, Lugansky, Horowitz, Gilels, interesting Van Cliburn.

What is special for you about Rachmaninoff?

His music encapsulates so much of the human experience, the vastness and richness of Russian culture. It is philosophical, lyrical, ethereal and tactile all at the same time.

Name some significant things music has taught you.

Music and Food go well together; maybe not exactly simultaneously but it might be worth trying!