Symphony No. 1 (Rachmaninoff)
The Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13, is a four-movement composition for orchestra written from January to October 1895 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. He composed it at his Ivanovka estate near Tambov, Russia. Despite its poor initial reception, the symphony is now seen as a dynamic representation of the Russian symphonic tradition, with British composer Robert Simpson calling it "a powerful work in its own right, stemming from Borodin and Tchaikovsky, but convinced, individual, finely constructed, and achieving a genuinely tragic and heroic expression that stands far above the pathos of his later music."
The failure of Symphony No. 1 was probably related to a subsequent psychological collapse that Rachmaninoff suffered a few months later; it haunted him until his death in 1943.
The Moscow Conservatory, where Rachmaninoff graduated with honors in the spring of 1891.
Portrait of Mitrofan Belyayev by Ilya Repin (1886)
César Cui led the critical charge against the symphony.
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness, dense contrapuntal textures, and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he used his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument.
Rachmaninoff in 1921
Rachmaninoff at age 10 in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Alexander Siloti and Rachmaninoff
Rachmaninoff in 1897, the year his Symphony No. 1 premiered