Description
Rather than describing two works which count among the best loved in the Piano Concerto and Symphonic literature respectively, the following liner notes will focus on the Tchaikovsky-Rachmaninoff relationship, which is perhaps slightly lesser known.
Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff belonged in two different generations. The older composer was born in 1840, and when he died, in 1893, Rachmaninoff was exactly twenty years old. His senior by approximately 30 years, Tchaikovsky could biologically have been Rachmaninoff’s father.
Tchaikovsky, who was at the height of his fame when Rachmaninoff began his musical activity, was actually able to mentor him almost from the outset. Rachmaninoff had received his first piano lessons as a very young child, and at five his formal musical education started. At ten he enrolled at the Conservatory of St Petersburg, but the results were not encouraging; so the boy moved to Moscow where he became a private student of Nikolay Zverev. It was at his teacher’s home that he met Tchaikovsky for the first time. Supported by the legendary composer, Rachmaninoff enrolled at the Conservatory of Moscow; indeed, so impressed was Tchaikovsky with Rachmaninoff’s performance at the theory exams, that he encouraged the budding musician to study composition along with the piano. When Rachmaninoff was sixteen, Tchaikovsky is reported to have said: “For him I predict a great future”.
