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Rachmaninov's Birth
Sergei Vasilevich Rachmaninov was born in Novgorod, Russia in 1873. Rachmaninoff was born fourth out of six kids into a noble family. -
The Big Move
Sergei and his family moved to St. Petersburg, where Sergei was granted a scholarship by the local conservatory. -
Study, Study, Study
When Rachmaninoff was 14, he moved alone to Moscow to study at the Moscow Imperial Conservatory. His parents instructed for him to live with his piano teacher Nikolai Zverev. -
Graduation!
Sergei Rachmaninoff graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, winning the Great Gold Medal for his new opera "Aleko." -
The Big Premiere
Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote the one-act opera Aleko (based on Pushkin's The Gypsies), which premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in 1893, which led up to Rachmaninoff winning the Moscow Conservatory's Great Gold Medal. -
Symphony no.1
Rachmaninoff's Symphony no.1 in D minor, Op. 13, is a music piece he wrote from January to October, which he written in Ivanovka. The premiere in St. Petersburg was a complete failure from the lack of practice and from the poor conductor Alexander Glazunov. -
Isle of the Dead
Isle of the Dead was a symphonic poem composed by Sergei which was inspired by Arnold Böcklin's painting, Isle of the Dead, which he saw in Paris in 1907. It is considered a classic example of Russian late-Romanticism of the beginning of the 20th century. -
Concerto no.3
On his first tour of the americas, Rachmaninoff publishes his concerto number 3, which was noticable to its different cadenza, which is an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style. -
World War I
On July 28th 1914, World War I broke out, which was mostly centered in Europe. World War I featured things like one of the worlds first tank battles, battleship warfare, and trench battles. World War I was also known to be "The War to end all Wars." -
The Russian Revolution
During Rachmaninoff's life, there was the russian revolution, which was basically the beginning of the Soviet Union, which took the exact time of Rachmaninoff Rachmaninoff's 40's or 50's, Which was a vital time in Rachmaninoff's composing life. -
Emigration and career in the West
In result of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff, with his wife and 2 kids moved from St. Petersburg to Helsinki in Finland, bringing only with him a couple notebooks with sketches of some of his compositions which included his unfinished opera Monna Vanna and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel. -
World War II
On September 1st 1939, World War II Begun, which was a global war that included the Americans, The Germans, and the Japanese. This war featured many gruesome battles such as D-Day, Stalingrad, Battle of the Bulge, and The Battle for the Pacific. -
Symphonic Dances
Symphonic Dances is an orchestral suite in three movements. Rachmaninoff completed this piece in 1940, and was his last composition. The work summarizes Rachmaninoff's compositional output. -
Rachmaninoff's Death
Sergei Rachmaninoff fell ill during a concert tour in late 1942, and was diagnosed with advanced melanoma. Rachmaninoff gave his last recital in february of 1943, which featured Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat Minor, which contains the famous funeral march. He died on March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California, and was interred in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
