Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor whose work extended the late-Romantic tradition into the twentieth century. Trained at the St Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories, he emerged with the Prelude in C-sharp minor and, after the failure of his First Symphony, regained confidence to write the Second Piano Concerto. He held conducting posts at the Bolshoi Theatre and composed symphonies, operas, songs, and Orthodox choral settings. After several years abroad in Dresden he returned to Russia, dividing his time between Moscow and the family's Ivanovka estate until the 1917 revolution. Leaving Russia in December 1917 by way of Scandinavia, he reached the United States in late 1918 and sustained an international career as a touring virtuoso pianist, composing more sparingly. His later years were spent largely in the United States, with summers from 1932 to 1939 at Villa Senar, the home he built on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.