Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov

Was a Russian composer, pianist, and
conductor. Rachmaninov, it seemed, could do
nothing right by most of his contemporary critics'
and composers' standards. As a composer, one of
the last great representatives
of Romanticism in Russian classical music. He
was born on April 2, 1873, on a large estate near
Novgorod, Russia. He studied music with his
mother from age 4; continued at the St.
Petersburg Conservatory, and then graduated
from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, winning
the Great Gold Medal for his new opera "Aleko."
In his last recital, in February, 1943,
Rachmaninov played Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2,
featuring the famous "Funeral march." He died on
March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California, and
was laid to rest in Kensico Cemetery, New York.