The morning after for Sergei Rachmaninoff

Synopsis

In St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1897, the First Symphony of Sergei Rachmaninoff had its disastrous premiere.

Now, there are bad reviews and then there are really bad reviews. When Rachmaninoff opened up a newspaper the next day he read, “If there were conservatory in hell, and if one of its students were instructed to write a symphony based on the seven plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Rachmaninoff's, he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and delighted the inmates of hell.”

Ouch!

What must have really hurt was that the review was written by a fellow composer, Cesare Cui, and the premiere was conducted — poorly, it seems — by another composer colleague, Alexander Glazunov.

The whole affair was so painful that Rachmaninoff needed therapy before he could compose again, and when he left Russia for good in 1917, he left the symphony’s manuscript behind, and in the turmoil of the Bolshevik revolution it was lost. However, the original orchestral parts for the 1897 premiere survived. They were rediscovered in 1945, two years after Rachmaninoff’s death, and a belated — and this time successful — second performance took place that same year.

Music Played in Today's Program

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphony No. 1; St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Mariss Jansons, cond. EMI 56754

On This Day

Births

• 1937 - American composer David Del Tredici, in Cloverdale, California;

Deaths

• 1736 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 26 (of consumption), in Pozzuoli;

• 1881 - Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (Gregorian date: March 28)

• 1968 - Italian-born American composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, 62, in Los Angeles;

• 1985 - American composer Roger Sessions, 88, in Princeton, N.J.;

Premieres

• 1735 - Handel: Organ Concertos Op. 4, nos. 2-3 (Julian date: March 5);

• 1750 - Handel: oratorio Theodora, in London at the Covent Garden Theater; At the same event, the possible premiere of Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 5, as well (Gregorian date: March 27);

• 1751 - Handel: oratorio The Choice of Hercules in London at the Covent Garden Theater; At the same event, Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 3 premieres following Act II of a revival performance of Handel's cantata Alexander's Feast on the same program (Gregorian date: March 27);

• 1833 - Bellini: opera Beatrice di Tenda in Venice at the Teatro la Fenice;

• 1870 - Tchaikovsky: fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, in Moscow, with Nicolas Rubinstien conducting (Julian date: March 4);

• 1871 - Tchaikovsky: String Quartet in D, Op. 11, in Moscow, by members of the Russian Musical Society (Gregorian date: March 28);

• 1879 - Dvorák: choral setting of Psalm No. 149, Op. 79, in Prague;

• 1888 - American premiere of the revised version of Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 (Romantic), with New York Philharmonic-Society conducted by Anton Seidl; In the preface to a book on Bruckner, the elderly conductor Walter Damrosch claimed he conducted the American premiere of this symphony (His memory played him false: Damrosch led the first American performance of Bruckner's Third Symphony;

• 1894 - Massenet: opera Thaïs, at the Paris Opéra;

• 1938 - Martinu: opera Julietta, in Prague at the National Theater;

• 1942 - Martinu: Sinfonietta giocosa, for piano and chamber orchestra, in New York City;

• 2002 - Paul Schoenfield: Nocturne for solo cello, oboe and strings, by cellist Peter Howard, with oboist Kathryn Greenbank and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Gilbert Varga conducting.