大象传媒

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov鈥檚 life in exile from Russia and attachment to the country estate he left behind: Ivanovka.

150 years ago this week, Sergei Rachmaninov was born: one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka 鈥� a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile.

Rachmaninov is forced to embark on a new full-time career as a concert pianist, through his first months as a refugee in Europe, and his passage west again, to New York. With his estate Ivanovka confiscated by the authorities after the October Revolution, the composer's first pieces written abroad contain echoes of home.

Etudes-Tableaux Op 39 No 3
Boris Giltburg, piano

Piano Concerto No 2 (Mvt 1)
Daniil Trifonov, piano
Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick N茅zet-S茅guin, conductor

Etudes-Tableaux Op 39 No 6
Sergei Rachmaninov, piano

The Bells (Mvt 2)
Luba Orgon谩拧ov谩, soprano
Berliner Philharmoniker
Rundfunkchor Berlin
Simon Rattle, conductor

Prelude Op. 3 No. 2
Steven Osborne, piano

Three Russian Songs
Concertgebouw Chorus
Concertgebouw Orchestra
Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor