Biography of Sergei Rachmaninoff

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“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” This is a quote from the great and talented composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. If you look up what the quote means you can get many different answers, but many I don’t agree with. I believe the quote means something more to Rachmaninoff. I think the quote means that through Rachmaninoff’s lifetime he could have been satisfied with the music he created, but through his lifetime he did not create all the music he could have. This speaks to how talented Rachmaninoff is at composing such master pieces in music. From his early child hood in Russia to becoming a worldwide success he has always had that drive to write music.
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born on April 1, 1873 in one of the oldest cities in Russia Novgorod. His father was an officer in the Army and his mother was born to a very wealthy family. The Rachmaninoff’s were part of an old aristocracy where the attitude was still there but the money was not. His family was very dysfunctional. His father was a strong alcoholic, which gambled regularly, eventually he lost all of his wife’s money. In 1882 Sergei’s father finally deserted the family Sergei was nine years old.
Young Sergei was quite often considered a problem child, and he was very arrogant. He had out of this world talent however. At the ripeful age of nine Rachmaninoff was enrolled at the College of Music in St. Petersburg. Since Rachmaninoff was arrogant he never bothered to study. Rachmaninoff’s cousin Alexander Siloti helped solve this problem he suggested that Rachmaninoff moved to Moscow and study with the strict teacher Nikolai Zverev, and in 1885 Rachmaninoff made the trip to Moscow to stay with Zverev which he did for three years. In 1888 Rachm...

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...sent to a College at a young age, the Russian Revolution he always was trying to compose music which is what he loved to do. “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” When Rachmaninoff said this he meant it. I’m sure he was satisfied with what he created in his lifetime, but there is a lot more he had left to give us.

Works Cited

“He also started a job in studio, producing recording that eighty years later are regarded as a handful of the most valuable interpretations, of his and other, ever recorded to disc” quote from Boosey & Hawkes. http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp?composerid=2861&ttitle=biography&ttype=biography http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sergey-rachmaninov-mn0000505265 http://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No.2,_Op.18_(Rachmaninoff,_Sergei) http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96apr/rachmaninoff.html

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