"Cold winds have swept the harvest land... and laid to waste my field of dreams... and scattered wide the ripening seeds which drift to earth upon the morrow... to die, or bring forth choking seeds... and bless the harvest of my sorrow" "In December 1 91 7... the great Russian composer, conductor and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff... left the Finland Station in Petrograd " "Leningrad, as it was to become - bound for Stockholm" "Taking advantage of an invitation to play for the Royal House of Sweden..." "Rachmaninoff decided to leave the growing chaos of Russia... following the Bolshevik Revolution" "With him were his two daughters and his wife" "His friends gave him warm clothes for the winterjourney" "Chaliapin brought him food and vodka" "Such was the hurry of his departure... that he took with him just one small bag - and his music case" "He was never to return" "He became, as he said, "like a ghost wandering forever in the world"" "It is a curious story" "The older we get, the more we lose that divine confidence... which is the treasure of youth" "And the fewer are those moments when we believe that what we have done is any good" "Nowadays, I am rarely satisfied with myself... and almost never feel that what I do is successful" "I am burdened with a harvest of sorrow" "THE HARVEST OF SORROW" "But there is another burden, heavier still, unknown to me in my youth lt is that I have no country the memories of SERGEl RACHMANlNOFF" "You must know that I was forced to leave my homeland... where l struggled and suffered all the sorrows of the young... and where l really did achieve great success" "Now, the whole world is open to me" "Success, apparently, awaits me everywhere" "But one place, and one place only, remains closed to me... and that is my own country, the land where l was born" "True, I have my music, and my memories... which I now put down for you, my dearest daughters, and your children" "And if it is true that a composer's music is the sum total of his experience... then it must express his love affairs, his religion... above all, the country of his birth" "And I was born... in Russia!" "I was born the fourth of six children... at Oneg, near Novgorod, two hours north of Moscow... on the banks of the river Volkhov, in the shadow of the church" "My father had been in the army and married a wealthy general's daughter... which perhaps accounts for my own military bearing" "But my father drank, enjoyed his women, and gambled... and soon we were forced to sell our estates... and move to "temporary" accommodation in the great city of St Petersburg" "Here I won a piano scholarship to the Conservatory in 1 883... when I was just 1 0 years old" "Opposite the Conservatory was the famous Mariinsky Theatre for opera and ballet... where the premieres of Swan Lake and Boris Godunov had recently taken place" "And it was here I realised that I must become a composer" "My studies went badly and when my sister Sofya died of diphtheria... my mother decided this was the last straw... and blamed my father for our slum-like circumstances" "Shortly after, she left him, and I never saw my father again" "On the recommendation of my cousin, Alexander Siloti... I was packed off to Moscow to study and live with his professor, Nikolai Zverev... leaving behind my beloved Mariinsky Theatre" "Siloti, I discovered later, was the lover of Tchaikovsky... who thereby became my friend and mentor" "With Zverev, it was always practise, practise, practise" "Finally, I could take it no more... and moved out to live with my Aunt, Vavara Satina... her husband and her two daughters, Sofia and Natalya" "And every summer, we all travelled to their country estates... at lvanovka, 600 km southeast of Moscow" "And here, I once again discovered the country fairs... which I had earlier visited with my parents" "The sound of gypsies and of the local peasant choirs... made a profound impression upon me" "lvanovka!" "20 years of my life were spent there" "Every Russian feels strong ties with the soil" "Perhaps it comes from an instinctive need for solitude" "The endless fields ofwheat, stretching as far as the eye could see" "The smell of the earth and all that grows and blossoms I felt so good there I could work, and work hard" "Most of my music was written there... and even when I left Russia, my music was inspired by there" "There, at last, I found blessed happiness" "Many artists, orchestra players, young pianists or vocalists... they were directly or indirectly influenced by his figure, his personality" "Even when he left Russia, I think... the remaining energy through the music he composed... was influencing every second or third musician... coming out of schools in Siberia, Caucasus, or in Moscow or Petersburg" "This is my belief" "This is what Rachmaninoff did to his country" "This is what he brought back to the culture... which again helped him grow as an artist and as a human being" "You can't imagine a pianist, a single pianist... who would try to learn something about piano playing... and just passed by without even looking at Rachmaninoff" "I don't think it was possible, and least in Russia" "And it was for the Satins at lvanovka that I wrote my C# minor Prelude" "I heard the endless tolling of the church bells... and one day the Prelude simply came to me, and I wrote it down" "It came with such force that I could not shake it off, even though I tried to do so" "And I was not yet 1 9 years old" "Following Rachmaninoff's departure from Russia in 1 91 7... the Bolsheviks looted and burned down his country house at lvanovka" "Since perestroika, it has been painstakingly rebuilt... ironically, by a local administration that is now communist" "Alexander Borisovich, we are happy to welcome you to lvanovka" "According to our ancient Russian custom, please take this bread and salt" "Please break the bread... put salt on it, and try" "Welcome to lvanovka, the land of your ancestors" "We have been waiting for a long time... for a direct heir of the Rachmaninoff and Satin families to visit us" "On this soil, your great-great grandfather... your great-grandfather and your grandmother were born" "And on June 21 st 1 907 your mother, Tatiana Sergeieva, was born here" "We are honoured to greet you here" "Long life to you..." "This is the Tambovsky Chamber Choir, named in honour of your grandfather" "This is the Head of the Region, Ljubov Samodurova" "You're the man, you hold the flowers!" "And this is the Head of the District, Evgeny Tarassov" "And Nadezhda Vassilieva, from the District Council" "And Zinaiada Milusheva from the Department of Culture" "On the meadow at the back of the house... we have put up a modest statue of your grandfather" "He is conducting the best, and most perfect, orchestra... the orchestra of nature!" "It's very modest, and we hope only temporary" "If a young man was under the iron discipline of his teacher... his piano teacher..." "So, of course, for the first time, if suddenly... he doesn't wake up at six, in a cold room... with the stress of in about 25 minutes you have to be ready... you have two minutes to wash your hands... then 30 seconds to reach your piano and you have to play one hour exactly" "Suddenly, he came for the first time to two nice young girls... who were very happy to pamper him... to offer him a rocking chair, to bring his tea for him lt was absolutely an unbelievable discovery" "The house itself has been rebuilt exactly on the site of the original" "On the veranda, we even found wicker furniture... to replace what we found in photographs" "Your mother's father, Alexander Alexandrovich... had great respect for your grandfather" "He thought him very honest... and incredibly industrious" "When your grandfather first came to stay... he liked to be in this little house in the gardens" "And this is the actual study of Rachmaninoff" "These walls must have been the first to hear your grandfather's music" "He chose this room because it is so quiet and solitary its only window looks out over the garden and the gazebo, shaded by maple trees" "All these things on the desk your grandfather held in his hands" "Vavara Arkadievna, your grandfather's mother-in-law... was the only person allowed in here when Rachmaninoffwas working" "The daughters of my aunt, Varvara Arkadyevna, were not my only loves" "There were also the sisters Skalon - Natalya, Ludmilla and Vera" "But perhaps my first true love was a gypsy called Anna Lodizhenskaya" "Alas, she was married" "I was by now a student at the Moscow Conservatoire... and when I set to work on my first opera, "Aleko"... I based it on a poem of Pushkin called "The Gypsies"" "Aleko - still not performed in the West - is only a student piece" "Nevertheless, it was accepted by the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow" "Chaliapin sang it in the Mariinsky Theatre" "Tchaikovsky came to the dress rehearsal and was full of praise" "But it was Anna, the gypsy I lost, who inspired it" "How quickly my youth has fled!" "The days of love pass even more quickly" "I only knew her love for a year" "One day, near a river... we came across an encampment of gypsies" "They had pitched their tents near ours" "Two nights we spent together" "On the third night, they departed" "When I awoke, my beloved had gone... leaving behind our small daughter" "I searched everywhere, calling her name... but there was no trace" "I wept" "And since that time, all girls are to me abhorrent... and I wish never to look on them again" ""Going to your heart", that's his description" ""l am trying to make music which goes directly to your heart... without passing through your brains" "You have to feel yourselfwell, relaxed, captivated..."" "Feeling well and happy byjust listening - that was his answer to the journalists" ""lf you want to know me, listen to my music" - his second sentence" "My 1 st Symphony, written at lvanovka when I was 22... and first performed in the Philharmonic Hall in St Petersburg, was a disaster" "My wife later thought the conductor, Glazunov, was drunk" "One critic wrote: "lf there were a music conservatory in hell... and one of its students was compelled to write a programme symphony... on the seven plagues of Egypt, then Mr Rachmaninoff has done it" "The inhabitants of hell must be delighted"" "As you know, the Symphony has never been performed again in my lifetime... or even published... and I'm pleased to report that the manuscript will never be found" "I had, of course, dedicated it to my gypsy, Anna Lodizhenskaya" "Ironically, I had added to the title page:" ""Vengeance is mine"" "In the Philharmonic Hall, I hid during the entire performance I refused to come on stage at the end, and fled into the night" "You can imagine how I felt." "I sought refuge at lvanovka... but was unable to compose again for almost three years" "But when I did begin again, well, you knowwhat that was!" "My Second Piano Concerto, which I dedicated to Doctor Dahl... who had helped me through this difficult period" "And to celebrate, I was incautious enough... finally to marry my cousin, Natalia Alexandrovna Satina, your mother" "I had to write at least twelve songs before the wedding... so as not to go bankrupt - and have something to pay the priest with" "Ah, lvanovka!" "When I was still in despair about my First Symphony... I was taken to meet Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace" "It was thought he too might help me restore a little faith in myself" "He stroked my knees and said:" ""You must work, young man, work" "Work every day, just as I do"" "Later, I played for him" "He asked me: "Tell me, does anybody really need music like that?"" "War. lt was bound to come." "I felt it." "We all did" "I had the idea for a piece from a painting by Böcklin... in which a boatman ferries us over to the Isle of the Dead" "How little did we know ofwhat was to come" "It was suggested that I went to America I had already been - played with the New York Symphony!" "My conducting career had also flourished - since beginning at Mamantov's Private Opera Company... I had already conducted at the Bolshoi in Moscow... and, of course, at my beloved Mariinsky Theatre" "So now I was offered the posts of chief conductor... of both the Cincinnati and the Boston Symphony Orchestras" "But now, war!" "And the destruction of all that we had known" "Once I had a homeland" "How beautiful it was!" "Above me swayed a fir tree" "But it was only a dream" "My family of friends was living then I was surrounded by words of love" "But it was only a dream" "And war bred revolution... and flight... into the darkness" "When I heard that they had looted and burned down lvanovka... and we were forced to continue our winterjourney by sledge" "When we eventually arrived in Stockholm, we were frozen, homeless and alone" "But we were too tired to weep" "After all, it was Christmas Eve" "America!" "As I told you, I had been before, been successful... but not liked it, not liked the crowds although in 1 909 I had given the world premiere... of my Third Piano Concerto in New York... with a second performance conducted by Gustav Mahler" "But now?" "I was 44 years old, homeless and in debt" "When the Boston Symphony again asked me - 1 1 0 concerts in just 30 weeks - l was tempted, but refused" "After all, I spoke not a word of the language." "Howwould I manage?" "But, almost a year after we had arrived in Sweden... fearing the worst, we had set sail for a new life" "My wife and I, with our two children, settled first, "temporarily"... in an apartment block at 33 Riverside Drive, by the Hudson River... a far cry from lvanovka" "A terrible pain in my head resulted in surgery... although the news that I was in hospital was interpreted back in Russia that I had died" "Thomas Edison asked me to make some recordings for his new "gramophone"" "But I never cared for those... and always destroyed any pressings I thought less than perfect" "My concert debut was on December 8th in Providence, Rhode lsland" "Little did I know that I was to give over 1 000 concerts in America alone... during the next 20 years" "The only thing that suffered was my composition - not a single line" "I just didn't feel like it" "He simply had not the time to put his mind on composing... because he had the family to look after" "He even got some money lent to go to America which he repaid later... and actually he was forced to do... the second period of his life as a concert pianist" "He would have liked probably to compose, but no time!" "The schedule in America - touring from October to January/February... how can a person on the train all the time start composing?" "America!" "What madness!" "And they always wanted me to play that damned C# minor Prelude!" "I'm not sorry I wrote it, it has helped me" "But now I play it without feeling, like a machine I think I prefer it as a dance tune" "But the money was good - what a bourgeois I've become!" "My character has been quite ruined." "I'm surrounded by nothing but business" "Business drives everything along." "Business, and the worship of money" "To how many human cares... betrayals, prayers and misery... does money bear painful witness?" "True, I was feted everywhere, and welcomed by my musical colleagues..." "Pierre Monteux, who had conducted the Premiere of "The Rite of Spring"... the young German conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler... even by my fellow exile, Igor Stravinsky... although he was later to describe me as a "six-foot scowl!"" "A widow brought me some baubles to pawn... in lieu of her husband's debt" "America gave me material security" "But America could not give me peace of mind" "To hell with her!" "But this?" "My idiotic son brought me this" "How could such an idle bastard have got it?" "Stole it, no doubt" "Or perhaps "found" it on the road" "If all the tears, and blood... that have been shed... for these riches and gold... that I have stored away... were suddenly to be disgorged... from the bowels of the earth... there'd be a flood..." "and I'd be drowned... in money!" "We found some consolation each summer... by renting a house out at Locust Point, NJ, about an hour from New York City" "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 ofwhom already lived here, and some ofwhom joined us in exile" "Stanislavsky was there... the people from the Arts Theatre..." "He adored Chaliapin." "They met in Moscow... when he was at the private opera, conducting... and Chaliapin was an up-and-coming... very talented singer - so they learned from each other" "Chaliapin also gave him lots of pleasure because he was full of funny stories" "But nothing could give us back what we most desired, our homeland" "For the exile, whose musical roots have been annihilated... there remains no desire for self expression" "A friend wrote about his feelings of being a nobody" "Such feelings are probably unknown to me, he said" "Howwrong he is!" "I am filled to the brim with such feelings" "I still wrote music, of course... but somehow it did not mean the same to me" "Only you, my family, and my religion, sustained me" "My Liturgy, written all those years ago for the choir of the Mariinsky Theatre... was constantly in my head" "Lord, give us this day our daily bread" "Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil" "I did give many charity concerts to those wounded in the war... both Russian and American... as well as countless recitals for those in Holland, Italy and France" "But whatever else I played, they always wanted the Preludes!" "Eventually, for convenience, we settled, "temporarily"... in a villa outside Paris, in 1 929, called Clairfontaine" "Here we planned to spend our summers" "At least Europe seemed a little closer to Russia I loved to sit under the pine trees and just watch the rabbits!" "Breakfast of tea, with cream, ham, cheese and hard-boiled eggs... once again reminded us of our Russia" "Meanwhile, news from Russia became ever more distressing" "Stalin and his bullies seemed determined to destroy the Russia we loved ln 1 931 , with Count Ilya Tolstoy and others... I wrote a letter to the New York Times in which I said:" ""At no time, and in no country... has there ever existed a government responsible for so many cruelties... wholesale murders and common-law crimes... as those perpetrated by the Bolsheviks" "For 1 3 years now, the communist oppressors... have subjected the Russian people to indescribable torture" "They are nothing but a group of professional murderers"" "My music was now forbidden at the Moscow and St Petersburg - now called Leningrad" " Conservatories, where l had long ago been a student I knew now that for me, Russia was forever closed" "Dies Irae!" "Day of anger!" "Only art that is free has meaning" "Only creativity that is free can be joyful" "In Russia, there are no free artists, only victims without rights" "The title "free artist" is now a bitterjoke" "The need to find a more permanent home now became urgent" "And through a friend, a biographer - who, like so many others, had misrepresented me - l found a site by Lake Lucerne, hidden in the mountains of Switzerland" "There's a big flat space right by a precipice, down to the lake I fell in love with the view immediately I saw it" "I kept imagining what it would be like to have my own music room... with big windows, with such a view" "I've even found a place where l can be buried I should build a house here and call it "Senar" " "Sergei and Natalya Rachmaninoff" "Here, I believe I shall find peace at last" "And here it was I wrote my "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini"... as a kind of christening present for the new house I worked literally from morn to night lt is a large piece - some compensation... for the many stupidities I allowed myself to commit in building the house" "Dies irae!" "For me, he was the epitome of a gentlemen" "He was slender, he was tall... he had a very good conservative taste for dressing" "It was always beautifully done, from Savile Row" "And always he looked absolutely perfect, to my way of thinking" "He was not at all gloomy." "It's all rubbish to say that" "He loved Armenian and Jewish jokes" "He laughed his head off when somebody told him a new one" "And he had a very special movement - you know, he had that short hair" "Irina, his daughter, told me father has two hairs... one is silk and the other one is velvet" "It really was like that - lt was silky, and when you went against it, it was velvet" "After breakfast he went for a walk around the house and garden... and then he'd practise, and he always started with scales" "He loved boats, going very fast" "He loved also driving his car in a very fast way" "He was a very good horseman, he was a good rider... but in Clairfontaine, he fell off the horse and aunt said that's it, no more" "My new boat in Senar only cost me 1 600 francs... plus 1 00 francs to the neighbour who drove me to the auction... plus... oh dear, oh dear... 200 francs for the little dog we ran over on the way" "Despite its great age - l'm talking about the motor, not me - it works magnificently, and if I do change it... it will only be because I want to go faster!" "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" "Old age!" "Perhaps it is that I'm lazy" "Perhaps the incessant practice and eternal rush... inescapable from life as a concert artist... is taking too much toll of my strength" "My fingers are giving me real trouble and the little finger on my left hand... threatens to go the same way as the one on the right" "And so a last work for piano solo" "Music should bring relief lt should rehabilitate the mind and soul lt cannot be just rhythm and colour lt must reveal, as simply as possible, the emotions of the heart" "I have made immense efforts to understand the music of today, but I cannot" "Perhaps it is that the music I care to write is not acceptable today" "But time may change the technique of music, it cannot alter its fundamental mission" "But I sometimes feel that all my audience wants is noise and excitement" "On a recent tour of America, for instance... I played the Corelli Variations about 1 5 times... but only one of these performances was any good" "The others were slapdash I even, the first time in my life, had a memory lapse... and, to the audience's great consternation... tried for a long time to remember what came next" "I was usually guided by the amount of coughing in the audience" "Whenever the coughing increased, I would just leave out a variation ln one concert, the coughing was so violent... that I only bothered to play about half the variations I have yet to give a complete performance" "I practise and practise but the more I play, the more I hear my own inadequacies" "If I ever do learn to play properly, I'll probably drop dead the next day" "But now the blood vessels on my fingertips have begun to burst, bruises are forming" "When that happens, I can't play for about two minutes... so I just strum some chords" "But take me away from my concerts and that'll be the end of me" "Oh, Russia, my Russia!" "And did I tell you about my 3rd Symphony?" "They played it in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and elsewhere... and they played it wonderfully" "But one critic wrote: "Oh, Rachmaninoff." "Does he have a 3rd symphony in him?"" "Cut, cut, cut, they say lt's like cutting out pieces of my heart" "I just broke off this letter to glance at the local afternoon newspaper" "The news is getting worse" "Calm is departing from those of us in Europe, even though war does not come" "To be the first to run away would seem improper in every way" "But I fear we are living on a volcano" "That there should be such possibilities in the world - it is unthinkable!" "'Christ is risen'... they sing in holy places" "But I am sad" "My soul is silent" "So much blood, and so many tears... are shed now in the world" "This song of praise before the altar... offends us like a mockery" "If He were among us now... and could see the achievements... of our glorious age... how brother has come to hate brother... how man himself is shamed!" "And if, in this world of ours now..." "He heard 'Christ is risen'..." "He would weep the bitterest of tears... in agony at what we have done" "I don't think that he was a very..." "Sunday church-goer" "It meant a lot to him otherwise he would never have written the Vigils and the Liturgy" "An unbeliever couldn't have written that" "Also, that he loved the bells - it must be something in a Russian soul..." "When I came to England, the first thing I missed were the evening bells lt must be something which means a lot to Russians, I don't know" "I think he was quite fascinated by death - he didn't like to think about it... I don't knowwhether he was afraid of death... but it occupied his mind, I'm sure, quite a bit" "And like the church bells, something in his music came always back to... you are here not forever, so one day you have to face the end is coming" "And so we left Europe once again... once again bound for America, to Los Angeles" "Left my beloved Senar, just as we had once left lvanovka" "Once again cut off from those places which sustained me... gave me comfort" "And from the comfort of America we heard of Leningrad" " St Petersburg - starving to death during the German siege" "My Symphonic Dances, which I wrote in America... were a memory ofwhat was, and what might have been" "After all, composing is as essential a part of my being as breathing or eating" "It is the expression of my deepest thoughts... and my constant need to compose... is actually the urge within me to give sounds to those thoughts" "I write down only what I hear within me" "My music is therefore a product of my temperament... and so, wherever I live, it is Russian music" "I wish to say, simply and directly, what I feel... and if that be love or sadness or bitterness, well, so be it" "My music is perhaps a long dark coda into the night" "How I miss the peace of Senar" "This endless concertizing, just to earn enough money to survive ln New Orleans, I definitely noticed that my cough was getting worse" "Soon I shall not be able to get up, sit or lie down" "Like Chekhov, I keep spitting phlegm into paper bags - phlegm covered with blood" "Too many cigarettes I am frightened, embarrassed and guilty" "And so, finally... as I end this long letter to you, my dearest Irina and Tatiana... I feel that my mournful features are clearing" "I have signed myself up for a course of "healing by music"" "What other function can music have but to make us whole again?" "As you know, the title of one of my first published songs... was "The Harvest of Sorrow"" "Perhaps nowwe can gather in the harvest and heal our sorrow" "Farewell." "Farewell my hands lt's just a very, very unique ability... for a composer to be able to compose a melody... which lasts sometimes nearly a minute... and people still can remember it right away" "This is difficult" "There are some composers of today, if they could only do it... and there's some very popular people in the last, let's say 20 or 30 years..." "Look at these young Beatles - they have this ability to give you... simple, but beautiful and strong... simple but strong, you know, image I call it a gift." "The melody, you just take it and it stays with you" "There were many, many others." "None of them reached the same level" "This is what Rachmaninoff brought to classical music in general:" "endless melody" "And also endless in terms that it starts... and it never gives you the feeling that..." ""it's clear, this melody - stop it"" "You want to listen, you want it to continue... you want to be led by this melody to the next and the next and the next vision" "And you see more and more... and every door opens and you see even more" "Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff died in Beverly Hills on March 28th, 1 943... a few days short of his 70th birthday" "He had composed four piano concertos, three operas, 80 songs... over 1 00 pieces for piano including two sonatas... numerous choral works for the church - and three symphonies... the second ofwhich, Rachmaninoff himself conducted the premiere in St Petersburg... on the 26th January, 1 908, in the Mariinsky Theatre" "After his death, since return of the body to Europe was impossible in wartime... he was buried in a cemetery he and his wife had chosen, outside New York... appropriately called "Valhalla" - the place of the Gods" "And his death certificate it said simply: "Composer"."