Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music by Sergei Bertensson

Author:Sergei Bertensson [Bertensson, Sergei]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Muriwai Books
Published: 2017-04-07T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14 — Ties with Russia

RACHMANINOFF’S ties with Russia at this period were closer than they had been since he emigrated. Seeing the Satins at Dresden awoke many memories. In addition to more regular messages from his mother, brother, and other relatives in Russia, the restored correspondence with Wilshaw put him again in touch with Russian musical life and his old friends. When Wilshaw wrote him that Nikita Morozov was recovering from a serious illness, Rachmaninoff sent good wishes at once to Morozov (“I’d still certainly like to talk with you and, of course, to argue as we used to”), even though his approaching season had brought down the bars on all correspondence. His parcels to needy persons in Russia grew more numerous, facilitated by the American Relief Administration. One of the most moving sections of the Rachmaninoff Archive contains the large group of responses to his gifts from musicians and writers, from artists, actors, teachers, from universities, conservatories, theaters. The chorus of the Marinsky Opera in Petrograd signed seventy signatures to their note of thanks. From the Kiev Conservatory, in the center of the famine area, came a reply that almost sobs its thanks. Stanislavsky wrote from the Moscow Art Theater: “You cannot know how your attention and memories touch our hearts. It is a very fine thing that you are doing, for the artists are really starving,” and he signed this “Your eternal debtors.” For years the parcels went and the letters came, not only from Russia, but from Russians all over the world—Paris, Prague, Harbin, San Francisco, The greetings that came to Rachmaninoff on his sixtieth birthday were chiefly from individuals and groups whom he had helped and fed. When morale was needed, that too he would try to supply. Musical America carried an appeal from him for help to the State Institute of Musical Science:{259}

“The organizers of this institution have sent me a letter containing two requests and a report covering ten months of their work. According to that report several manuscripts of articles on the science of music were prepared by the members of the institution,{260} but could not be published owing to lack of funds.”

The requests contained in the letter of the organizers are:

1. “They appeal through me to your country “which has such esteem for Science, Culture and Art” and they hope that perhaps “there could be found persons interested in the Science of Music, who would and could bring material help to a cultural work of international importance.” This material help is needed exclusively for the publication of scientific articles and researches.”

2. “Their second request is to bring to the attention of the American people through the press the fact of the existence of their institution.”

When Felix Blumenfeld sent Rachmaninoff a list of needs among his colleagues in Kiev, he also sent a cheering account of musical activity:

“From August 1918 up to last spring I had as a graduate student an extremely talented youth of 17, Vladimir Horowitz—a passionate admirer of your music and of Medtner’s.

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