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8 unusual facts about Sergei Rachmaninoff


Arts and culture in Stamford, Connecticut

In 1928, the theater advertised a Sunday performance of the "World's Greatest Pianist", Sergei Rachmaninoff, calling him simply "Rachmaninoff".

George Hill Hodel

Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff traveled to his grandparents' house to hear George, Jr. play.

Nadezhda Plevitskaya

Plevitskya made concert tours throughout Europe (and, in 1926, to the United States, where she was accompanied by Sergei Rachmaninoff), while her husband, General Skoblin, took a leading role in a White émigré organization, the ROVS.

Oak View, Norwood, Massachusetts

Some of the most prominent figures hosted in Oak View during those years were President (and later a Supreme Court Justice) William Howard Taft, President Calvin Coolidge, Russian Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, artist John Singer Sargent, Episcopal Bishop of Boston Phillips Brooks and philosopher William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Viscount Kentaro Kaneko of Japan, tenor John McCormack and others of similar stature.

Overture to Death

The plot concerns a murder during a village theatrical performance; Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor plays a prominent part in the story.

Russian Symphony Concerts

The following year, he led the disastrous premiere of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No 1.

Troy Savings Bank

In the early years of the 20th century the Music Hall featured performances from artists such as Lillian Nordica, Henri Vieuxtemps, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Albert Spalding, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Myra Hess and Jose Iturbi.

Wando High School

Turn included the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, the changing of seasons and included a plume change.


Aaron Richmond

Over the next several years, Richmond also presented such noted artists as pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, singer and composer J. Rosamond Johnson, pianist Harold Samuel, contralto Margarete Matzenauer, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Harrison Keller, Denoe Leedy, violinist Albert Spalding, the People's Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Alexandra Tolstaya

In later years, she helped many Russian intellectuals (notably Vladimir Nabokov and Sergei Rachmaninoff) to escape Bolshevik persecution and to settle in America.

Community Arts Music Association

Since the 1920s, CAMA has presented such artists as Pablo Casals, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz, Jascha Heifetz, Igor Stravinsky, Artur Schnabel, Isaac Stern and Marian Anderson, with yearly performances from the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Full Moon and Empty Arms

"Full Moon and Empty Arms" is a 1945 popular song by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman, based on Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Gleb W. Derujinsky

His original sculptures in plaster done from life include Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev, Lillian Gish, Lady Diana Cooper, Rabindranath Tagore, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, José R. Capablanca and many others.

Hakob Gyurjian

He is the author of over 300 sculpture portraits (Feodor Chaliapin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ludwig van Beethoven, Vahan Terian, Martiros Saryan, Georgy Yakulov, etc.), also “Diana”, “Nude woman”, “Adolescence” and many others are famous sculptures.

Jon Nakamatsu

During the summer of 2005, Nakamatsu toured with the San Jose Youth Symphony in Spain, performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, and in June 2007, he toured with the Peninsula Youth Orchestra to Budapest, Prague, and Teplice playing the same piece.

Lodewijk Mortelmans

In 1903, with financial support from the patron François Franck, Mortelmans founded the Maatschappij der Nieuwe Concerten ("Society of New Concerts") in Antwerp, which attracted notable guest conductors and artists such as Gustav Mahler, Siegfried Wagner, Hans Richter, Richard Strauss, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pablo de Sarasate, Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, and Fritz Kreisler.

Lucien Cailliet

Cailliet also orchestrated three piano pieces of Sergei Rachmaninoff: the Serenade No. 5 from Morceaux de fantaisie Opus 3, the Prelude No. 5 in G minor from the 10 preludes of Opus 23, and the Prelude No. 5 in G major from the 13 preludes of Opus 32.

Niel van der Watt

While van der Watt's early works show the influence of late romanticists like Rachmaninoff and Fauré, his mastery of harmony and counterpoint reveals a deep understanding of and reverence for the great master Johann Sebastian Bach.

Peter Katin

Katin made his debut at the Wigmore Hall on 13 December 1948 where the programme included works by Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Chopin.

Ran Dank

In August 2008 Dank was awarded with the third prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition including special awards by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for the best performance of the two concertos in the final, and awards for the best performance of a work by Debussy and a work by Rachmaninov.

Richard Sparks

He remained there until 2001, during which time he directed the choir in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, Bach's Mass in B Minor and St. John Passion, Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vespers, Johannes Brahms's Liebeslieder Walzer, and Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem.

Walter Henry Rothwell

In the summer of 1919, Rothwell became the first music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, chosen by founder William Andrews Clark, Jr. after the position was declined by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

West Michigan Symphony Orchestra

Among notable soloists who have performed with the orchestra are Jessye Norman, Joshua Bell, Percy Grainger, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Yuri Rozum performed the Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 by Sergei Rachmaninoff with the orchestra on May 5, 2007.


see also

Vyacheslav Polozov

1986 Aleko by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, under Dmitri Kitayenko, MELODIA