Inspired in Exile

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov’s deep longing for his homeland, following his move to America.

Rachmaninov has been seen as the last great champion of Russian late Romanticism. He was a celebrated pianist and conductor, as well as a composer, and his musical legacy includes his hugely popular piano concertos. In this series of programmes, Donald Macleod turns his attention to Rachmaninov’s great choral works and his story during the periods in which they were composed. These choral masterpieces are both sacred and secular, and include the cantata Spring, the choral symphony The Bells, Three Russian Songs, the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, and the iconic All-Night Vigil. Donald explores what inspired Rachmaninov while he was writing this music, including creative collaborations, beautiful poetry, and places in Russia and abroad.

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Rachmaninov moved to America with his family and would spend 25 years there. During the first eight years, he didn’t compose anything new, but then came his Fourth Piano Concerto, a work steeped in the heritage of the composer’s abandoned homeland. Rachmaninov followed this with his Three Russian Songs, another work, whose original sketches predated the composer’s flight from Russia and whose music seems suffused with sadness.

Kreisler, arr. Rachmaninov
Liebeslied
Alessio Bax, piano

Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No 4 in G minor, Op 40 (Allegro vivace)
Simon Trpčeski, piano
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, conductor

Three Russian Songs, Op 41
St Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre Chorus
BBC Philharmonic
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

All-night Vigil Op 37 (excerpt)
St Petersburg Chamber Choir
Nikolai Korniev, conductor

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for BBC Wales