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Arts & Communication Artists recreating our world

way of making his unique contribution to humanity. His is movements in 1900, with a first performance of the entire
a story of a man who worked hard to achieve a high level work in 1901. Rachmaninoff had expressed to Dahl his
of personal skill, of discovering the necessary diplomatic desire to write another piano concerto, recollecting:
skills to deal with ornery colleagues, and of reconciling “Dahl had asked what manner of composition they
himself to his personal circumstances to lead a satisfying desired and had received the answer, ‘A Concerto for
life as a teacher, composer, and performer. Through an pianoforte,’ for this I had promised to the people in
archaeology of Rachmaninoff’s sense of failure, there are London and had given it up in despair. Consequently,
lessons that artists today can learn and, in turn, lead society I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated day after
toward wellness in the post-pandemic environment. day while I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dahl’s
3. Anatomy of failure and success study. ‘You will begin to write your Concerto…You
will work with great facility…The Concerto will be of
Rachmaninoff is exemplary in the way he handled near- an excellent quality…’ It was always the same, without
career-ending failure and his process of recovery. His is interruption. Although it·may sound incredible, this
an important story due to his ability to marshal internal cure really helped me.” (p. 112) 20
resources while drawing on support from mentors to The treatment was so effective that Rachmaninoff began
become an artist whose works resonate with audiences
today. He is both the consoler and antennae of our race. to feel the once familiar creative urges reawakening within
him. He reported that “the material grew in bulk, and new
The first symphony carries many of the harmonic and musical ideas began to stir within me,” (p. 112) writing what
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tonal features that became hallmarks of Rachmaninoff’s is perhaps one of his most popular works today – his second
mature style. In this symphony, he finds his voice, piano concerto. It is not surprising that Rachmaninoff
making bold declamations, stretching the orchestral dedicated the concerto to Dahl and his interventions.
resources, and placing advanced technical demands on
This raises several questions about how people
all musicians. It builds on, and indeed breaks with the develop resources to cope with crises while at the same
works of his role model, Tchaikovsky , and gives hints to time keeping faith with their life purpose. Certainly,
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the classical traditions championed by Beethoven. Yet the Rachmaninoff formed a visceral and abiding distaste
first performance was a disaster, causing Rachmaninoff to for his first symphony, which developed when attending
retreat into himself. For 2 years, Rachmaninoff suffered rehearsals, and on hearing the first performance while
from what we might today call “writer’s block.”
hiding on the fire escape outside the St Petersburg theater.
What should have been a celebration of this young man’s He had poured himself into this work, focusing solely
creativity, the performance of the first symphony, instead on completing it at the expense of other projects, and he
became the target of scorn. The notable and somewhat had, perhaps mistakenly, decided that public reaction
caustic critic of the day, César Cui, wrote: to its first performance would confirm for him his life’s
“If there is a Conservatory in Hell, and one of the direction. One of Rachmaninoff’s composition teachers
gifted pupils should be given the problem of writing at the Moscow Conservatory, Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev,
a programmatic symphony on the Seven Plagues of had seen the almost finished score and, although he was
Egypt, and if he should write a symphony resembling aware of “several instances of harmonic pretentiousness,”
Mr. Rachmaninoff’s symphony – his problem would he considered the work was “unquestionably a talented
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have been carried out brilliantly, and he would enchant one.” (p. 70) This affirmation had spurred Rachmaninoff
all the inmates of Hell.” (p. 71–72) 19 on, giving him the impetus to complete it.
Such a crushing assessment, on top of the unexpected But what began as a ground-breaking creative work
deaths of his mentor Tchaikovsky and teacher Zverev, sent became a source of horror to the point where Rachmaninoff
Rachmaninoff into paralyzing depression. A profound refused to have it performed again during his lifetime, and
apathy descended on Rachmaninoff, rendering him in his will, he requested that manuscripts be destroyed.
unable to compose forcing him to seek therapeutic help. Indeed, it only exists now in the orchestral repertoire
Regular sessions of hypnotherapy with Dr. Nikolay Dahl because the individual instrumental parts survived his
and teaching and conducting contracts gave Rachmaninoff executor’s furnace.
the impetus to return to composing. As a direct result of For sure, Rachmaninoff had considerable self-belief in
Dahl’s interventions, which included simple repetitions of the symphony when the written score was complete. While
the intention to write music again, he began composing he recognized there were some compositional failings,
his second piano concerto, completing the first two he also thought that it was the performance of it was

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.2126