Sergei Rachmaninoff
| Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian pianist and composer of classical music of an elite family, used in program Romanticism. He was influenced by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He was trained at the Moscow Conservatory (founded by Nikolaj Rubenstein) by Nikolai Zverev, friend of Tchaikovsky, Anton Rubinstein and also the teacher of Konstantin Igumnov, Alexander Skriabin and Alexander Siloti. Sergei Taneyev was his teacher in counterpoint. He worked for the Bolshoi Theatre opera house. After the Russian Revolution he was transferred to New York. From 1920 he worked for RCA Records. From the 40"s he lived in the Beverly Hills in LA. He presumably had Marfan syndrome (Akhenaten bloodline, long fingers like Niccolo Paganini). |  |
His mother was related to Alexander Siloti, a student of Zverev and mason Franz Liszt (whose daughter Cosima married Richard Wagner) who promoted Arnold Schoenberg and taught at Julliard School.
He married his first cousin (tradition of incest) Natalia Satina, trained by Konstantin Igumnov.
His works include piano concerto's, Isle of the Dead (Böcklin's painting), opera Aleko (based on poem of Alexander Pushkin), Monna Vanna based on work of Maurice Maeterlinck with Tatiana Troyanos (Julliard, Forest Hills High School like Ramones, Jerry Springer, Art Gartfunkel),..
He worked with Leopold Stokowski and his Philadelphia Orchestra. Stokowski conducted Disney's Fantasia, promoted atonality of Schoenberg, married Evelyn Johnson (Johnson & Johnson) and Gloria Vanderbilt.
The Conservatoire Rachmaninoff was established in Paris.
born 1873.
died 1943.