Stockholm, January 1918. Along with his family, Sergej Rachmaninoff had fled to Scandinavia to escape from the October Revolution and the civil war that had torn apart his native Russia. Russian émigrés were scattered across the face of Europe, and among them were large numbers of that country's intellectual and artistic élite. Like Rachmaninoff. Vladimir Nabokov, Igor Stravinsky. Fyodor Shalyapin and Anna Pavlova had all left the country. In Russia, Rachmaninoff had been highly regarded as a composer, but now that he was living abroad he doubted whether he could make a name for himself by means of his own works.As a pianist, however, it was a different matter. After all, he was a fully trained pianist, even though he had concentrated until then on composition and conducting. Rachmaninoff weighed the possibilities: as a conductor, he had little experience of the non-Russian repertoire, whereas he was confident that as a pianist he could expand his admittedly equally limited repertoire swiftly and systematically. And so he decided early in 1918 that from then on he would no longer be a composer but a concert pianist: a travelling virtuoso. And for his concert platform he chose the United States of America, the country that, in his estimation, offered him the greatest potential.As a pianist, Rachmaninoff set about surmounting this new challenge purposefully and professionally. He would be able to demand $60O for two piano concertos an evening, $900 for a solo recital. He would play only on Steinway pianos and travel first class. In this way he staked out his market value and, as it turned out, he by no means overestimated his own marketability.He had been in New York for only ten days when he attended the début recital by his younger colleague, Sergej Prokofiev, and here he made an important discovery: audiences in the United States expected pianists not to perform their own works but to demonstrate their interpretative gifts and virtuoso abilities by playing classical mainstream repertoire. Prokofiev made the mistake of playing too many of his own highly demanding compositions, albeit leavened by a handful of well-known pieces by Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. The audience was overtaxed by the programme and reacted unenthusiastically. Rachmaninoff learned his lesson and in his own programmes preferred classical works interspersed with his own preludes and transcriptions. He began his first American concert in December 1918 with his own arrangement of the nationalistic Star-Spangled Banner and in this way everyone was pleased.Rachmaninoff's market value soon shot up. At a charity concert in April 1919 the encores played by the two soloists Ave Maria performed by Jascha Heifetz and the Prelude in C sharp Minor by Rachmaninoff were recorded on a wax cylinder and auctioned. Heifetz netted several hundred thousand dollars, while Rachmaninoff earned a million. This sum was paid by the American Piano Company, a firm that made player pianos. Rachmaninoff regularly recorded shorter pieces for the company between 1919 and 1929. By that time he had already signed his first recording contract with the Thomas Edison Company, and the earliest recordings in the present edition date from this period. They include such exotic works as Scarlatti's D Minor Sonata in an arrangement by Carl Tausig, as well as a movement from one of Mozart's sonatas and Rachmaninoff's own Polka de W.R. of 1911.If Rachmaninoff's interpretative style changed at this time, it may have been the result of his novel experience of working in the studio. Previously, his playing had been described as lyrical and cantabile, but these early recordings reveal a rather more sober, rhythmically rigid style of playing in which nothing is smudged by excessive use of the pedal. This is consistent with the image that Rachmaninoff consciously presented in public: an ascetic, angular Russian capable of great clarity and power."Even if his musical convictions may no longer be shared by everyone today, it is beyond doubt that he opened the doors to a more modern kind of piano playing. Recordings that he made of his own piano works show how reserved, almost timid, was his approach to these compositions, thereby giving the lie to the legend that as a piano virtuoso he was a titan.Alain Paris, Classical Music in the Twentieth CenturyIn 1920 Rachmaninoff moved to the Victor Talking Machine Company, signing a five-year contract that guaranteed a $15,000 advance. Record sales and concert bookings were buoyant, and Rachmaninoff was soon one of the highest-paid musicians in the United States. Yet his attitude to gramophone recordings remained one of healthy distrust, as he was well aware of the pitfalls of the medium: "I get very nervous when I am making records, he confided in 1930. "When the test records are made, I know that I can hear them played back to me, and then everything is all right. But when the stage is set for the final recording and I realize that this will remain for good, I get nervous and my hands get tense.

But Rachmaninoff first had to assimilate the repertoire for his recordings and concert seasons. Although it was a gradual process, his repertoire grew slowly but surely. He worked on it unsparingly and with enormous effort, so that by 1924 he was showing clear signs of exhaustion. New works of his own were not in demand, but he was able to express his creative urge by preparing piano arrangements of successful works by other composers: Kreisler's Liebesfreud, Bizet's L'arlésienne Suite, Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee, Tchaikovsky's Lullaby and a number of Schubert lieder. In this, he continued the tradition of the great 19th-century virtuosos, beginning with Franz Liszt, all of whom demonstrated their digital dexterity by means of technically demanding piano transcriptions of popular works. Rachmaninoff also recorded transcriptions by other composers, including Anton Rubinstein's arrangement of Beethoven's Ruins of Athens, which he recorded in 1925, Liszt's piano paraphrases of Schubert lieder and Giovanni Sgambati's arrangement of the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.Of these paraphrases, the one that has made a place for itself in the concert hall is Rachmaninoff's own sympathetic set of variations on Paganini's Twenty-fourth Caprice. He completed the work (scored for piano and orchestra) in 1934 and it became one of the cornerstones of his repertoire during his later years as a pianist.The medium of piano and orchestra was one that he had last tackled in 1926 in his Fourth Piano Concerto. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was to be his final work for the piano.In 1926 Rachmaninoff recorded a number of Russian folksongs with Nadezhda Plevitskaya a venture that was not without its dangers. Popular in émigré circles, the soprano was in fact an agent of the NKVD (Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del), the predecessor of the KGB. She was supposed to infiltrate the Russian exile ommunity but was imprisoned in the 1930s.

Rachmaninoff's record company, Victor, was bought by RCA in 1929, with the result that his recordings were now even more widely distributed. The company's two most prestigious artists, Fritz Kreisler and Rachmaninoff, were brought together in the recording studio, but with mixed results. They were antithetical as artists: Rachmaninoff profoundly punctilious, Kreisler the more impulsive of the pair. They recorded violin sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert in New York, while Grieg's Third Violin Sonata was set down in Berlin."Rachmaninoff was a pianist after my heart. [...] He was the most fascinating pianist of them all since Busoni. He had the secret of the golden, living tone which comes from the heart and which is inimitable. In my strong opinion he was a greater pianist than a composer.Arthur Rubinstein, My Many YearsClouds were beginning to gather, at first scarcely threatening, but nonetheless noticeable. The famous Stock Exchange crash of 1929 left Rachmaninoff's fortune much reduced, and the ensuing economic slump meant that the Americans had less money to spend on records. In 1921 one hundred million records had been sold, but by 1931 this figure had fallen to barely five million. And the market, too, was shrinking, not least because another Russian pianist was beginning to conquer the country: Vladimir Horowitz, whose recording of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto was proving hugely popular. Rachmaninoff seems to have felt that his career as a concert pianist on whom the highest demands were placed was slowly drawing to a close. During the 1930s Rachmaninoff turned sixty in 1933 giving concerts became increasingly difficult and less profitable as fewer and fewer Americans could afford to buy tickets. And European tours were no better. The Rachmaninoffs moved to Switzerland, where they had built themselves a house overlooking Lake Lucerne. Although Rachmaninoff was now composing more than ever, he was in a bad way: "My health has been wretched, he told a correspondent in 1935. "I'm breaking up rapidly!" He had to continue giving around sixty concerts a year, although the results were now somewhat mixed.In 1939, shortly before war broke out in Europe, Rachmaninoff returned to the United States to take part in a Rachmaninoff Festival organized by Eugene Ormandy. During his final years, the now almost seventy-year-old composer was not just regarded as a legend in his own lifetime. It is clear from his final recordings of his piano concertos and his arrangement of Bach's Partita No. 3 that he was also able to recapture the magic of his earlier pianism. He died in a clinic in Beverly Hills on March 28, 1943 as an American citizen: the Rachmaninoffs had received their naturalization papers on February 1.

斯德哥爾摩，1918年1月。謝爾蓋-拉赫瑪尼諾夫和他的家人一起逃到斯堪的納維亞半島，以逃避十月革命和撕裂了他的祖國(guó)俄羅斯的內(nèi)戰(zhàn)。俄羅斯移民散布在歐洲各地，其中有大量該國(guó)的知識(shí)和藝術(shù)精英。比如拉赫瑪尼諾夫。弗拉基米爾-納博科夫，伊戈?duì)?斯特拉文斯基。費(fèi)奧多爾-沙利亞平和安娜-帕夫洛娃都已經(jīng)離開(kāi)了這個(gè)國(guó)家。在俄羅斯，拉赫瑪尼諾夫作為一個(gè)作曲家一直受到高度重視，但現(xiàn)在他生活在國(guó)外，他懷疑他是否能通過(guò)自己的作品為自己贏得聲譽(yù)。畢竟，他是一個(gè)受過(guò)充分訓(xùn)練的鋼琴家，盡管在此之前他一直專(zhuān)注于作曲和指揮。拉赫瑪尼諾夫權(quán)衡了各種可能性：作為一個(gè)指揮家，他對(duì)非俄羅斯的曲目沒(méi)有什么經(jīng)驗(yàn)，而作為一個(gè)鋼琴家，他有信心迅速和系統(tǒng)地?cái)U(kuò)大他公認(rèn)的同樣有限的曲目。因此，他在1918年初決定，從那時(shí)起，他將不再是一個(gè)作曲家，而是一個(gè)音樂(lè)會(huì)鋼琴家：一個(gè)巡回演奏家。作為一名鋼琴家，拉赫瑪尼諾夫開(kāi)始有目的地、專(zhuān)業(yè)地克服這個(gè)新的挑戰(zhàn)。作為鋼琴家，拉赫瑪尼諾夫開(kāi)始有目的地、專(zhuān)業(yè)地應(yīng)對(duì)這個(gè)新的挑戰(zhàn)。他可以要求一晚兩首鋼琴協(xié)奏曲的演出費(fèi)為600美元，一場(chǎng)獨(dú)奏會(huì)的演出費(fèi)為900美元。他將只在施坦威鋼琴上演奏，并乘坐頭等艙。通過(guò)這種方式，他確定了自己的市場(chǎng)價(jià)值，事實(shí)證明，他絕沒(méi)有高估自己的市場(chǎng)價(jià)值。他在紐約只呆了十天，就參加了他的年輕同事謝爾蓋-普羅科菲耶夫的首次獨(dú)奏會(huì)，在這里他有了一個(gè)重要發(fā)現(xiàn)：美國(guó)的觀眾希望鋼琴家不要演奏自己的作品，而是通過(guò)演奏經(jīng)典的主流曲目來(lái)展示他們的詮釋天賦和演奏能力。普羅科菲耶夫犯了一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤，那就是演奏了太多他自己的高難度作品，盡管有少數(shù)拉赫瑪尼諾夫和斯克里亞賓的知名作品作補(bǔ)充。觀眾們被這個(gè)節(jié)目壓得喘不過(guò)氣來(lái)，反應(yīng)很不熱烈。拉赫瑪尼諾夫吸取了教訓(xùn)，在他自己的節(jié)目中更喜歡古典作品與他自己的前奏曲和轉(zhuǎn)錄曲穿插進(jìn)行。1918年12月，他以自己改編的民族主義的《星條旗》開(kāi)始了他的第一場(chǎng)美國(guó)音樂(lè)會(huì)，這樣一來(lái)，大家都很高興。拉赫瑪尼諾夫的市場(chǎng)價(jià)值很快就上升了。在1919年4月的一場(chǎng)慈善音樂(lè)會(huì)上，由亞沙-海費(fèi)茨演奏的《圣母頌》和拉赫瑪尼諾夫的《C小調(diào)前奏曲》這兩首獨(dú)奏曲的安可曲被錄制在一個(gè)蠟筒里并進(jìn)行拍賣(mài)。海菲茲獲得了幾十萬(wàn)美元的收入，而拉赫瑪尼諾夫則獲得了一百萬(wàn)美元。這筆錢(qián)是由美國(guó)鋼琴公司支付的，這是一家生產(chǎn)演奏鋼琴的公司。拉赫瑪尼諾夫在1919年至1929年間經(jīng)常為該公司錄制較短的作品。那時(shí)，他已經(jīng)與托馬斯-愛(ài)迪生公司簽訂了他的第一份錄音合同，本版中最早的錄音是在這個(gè)時(shí)期。其中包括斯卡拉蒂的D小調(diào)奏鳴曲等由卡爾-陶西格編曲的異國(guó)作品，以及莫扎特奏鳴曲中的一個(gè)樂(lè)章和拉赫瑪尼諾夫自己在1911年創(chuàng)作的波爾卡-德-R.。如果拉赫瑪尼諾夫的演繹風(fēng)格在這個(gè)時(shí)候發(fā)生了變化，這可能是他在錄音室工作的新體驗(yàn)的結(jié)果。在此之前，他的演奏被描述為抒情和頌歌，但這些早期的錄音顯示出一種相當(dāng)清醒的、節(jié)奏嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)?shù)难葑囡L(fēng)格，其中沒(méi)有任何東西被過(guò)度使用踏板所玷污。這與拉赫瑪尼諾夫有意識(shí)地在公眾面前展示的形象是一致的：一個(gè)禁欲主義的、有棱有角的俄羅斯人，能夠有很強(qiáng)的清晰度和力量。"即使他的音樂(lè)信念今天可能不再被所有人認(rèn)同，但毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，他為一種更現(xiàn)代的鋼琴演奏打開(kāi)了大門(mén)。他為自己的鋼琴作品錄制的唱片顯示了他對(duì)這些作品的態(tài)度是多么的拘謹(jǐn)，幾乎是膽怯，從而掩蓋了他作為鋼琴演奏家是一個(gè)巨人的傳說(shuō)。1920年，拉赫瑪尼諾夫轉(zhuǎn)投維克多錄音機(jī)公司，簽署了一份為期五年的合同，保證了15000美元的預(yù)付款。唱片的銷(xiāo)售和音樂(lè)會(huì)的預(yù)訂都很旺盛，拉赫瑪尼諾夫很快成為美國(guó)收入最高的音樂(lè)家之一。然而，他對(duì)留聲機(jī)唱片的態(tài)度仍然是一種健康的不信任，因?yàn)樗芮宄@種媒介的陷阱："當(dāng)我制作唱片時(shí)，我非常緊張，他在1930年坦言。"當(dāng)制作測(cè)試唱片時(shí)，我知道我可以聽(tīng)到它們回放給我聽(tīng)，然后一切就都好了。但是，當(dāng)舞臺(tái)上有了最后的錄音，我意識(shí)到這將永遠(yuǎn)保持下去時(shí)，我就會(huì)緊張，我的手也會(huì)緊張起來(lái)。

但拉赫瑪尼諾夫首先要為他的錄音和音樂(lè)會(huì)季吸收曲目。雖然這是一個(gè)循序漸進(jìn)的過(guò)程，但他的曲目卻在緩慢而穩(wěn)定地增長(zhǎng)。他不遺余力地工作，付出了巨大的努力，所以到1924年，他已經(jīng)顯示出明顯的疲憊跡象。他自己的新作品并不受歡迎，但他可以通過(guò)準(zhǔn)備其他作曲家成功作品的鋼琴改編來(lái)表達(dá)他的創(chuàng)作沖動(dòng)?？巳R斯勒的《Liebesfreud》、比才的《L'arlésienne Suite》、里姆斯基-科薩科夫的《大黃蜂的飛行》、柴可夫斯基的《搖籃曲》和一些舒伯特的抒情曲。在這一點(diǎn)上，他繼承了19世紀(jì)偉大的演奏家的傳統(tǒng)，從李斯特開(kāi)始，所有這些人都通過(guò)對(duì)流行作品進(jìn)行技術(shù)要求高的鋼琴轉(zhuǎn)錄來(lái)展示他們的數(shù)字靈活性。拉赫瑪尼諾夫還錄制了其他作曲家的轉(zhuǎn)錄作品，包括他在1925年錄制的安東-魯賓斯坦對(duì)貝多芬《雅典廢墟》的改編，李斯特對(duì)舒伯特抒情詩(shī)的鋼琴改編，以及喬瓦尼-斯甘巴蒂對(duì)格魯克《奧菲歐與歐里狄斯》中 "福靈之舞 "的改編。 在這些改編曲中，在音樂(lè)廳中占有一席之地的是拉赫瑪尼諾夫自己對(duì)帕格尼尼的《第二十四首隨想曲》進(jìn)行的同情性變奏集。他于1934年完成了這部作品（為鋼琴和管弦樂(lè)隊(duì)譜曲），在他作為鋼琴家的晚年，這部作品成為他曲目的基石之一。1926年，拉赫瑪尼諾夫與娜杰日達(dá)-普列維茨卡婭一起錄制了一些俄羅斯民歌，這一嘗試并非沒(méi)有危險(xiǎn)。在移民圈子里很受歡迎，這位女高音實(shí)際上是NKVD（Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del）的一名特工，即克格勃的前身。她本應(yīng)滲透到俄羅斯流亡群體中，但在1930年代被監(jiān)禁。

拉赫瑪尼諾夫的唱片公司維克多在1929年被RCA收購(gòu)，結(jié)果他的唱片現(xiàn)在被更廣泛地傳播。該公司最負(fù)盛名的兩位藝術(shù)家，弗里茨-克萊斯勒和拉赫瑪尼諾夫，在錄音室里走到了一起，但結(jié)果卻不盡相同。作為藝術(shù)家，他們是相互對(duì)立的。拉赫瑪尼諾夫深沉而嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)，而克萊斯勒則是這兩人中比較沖動(dòng)的。他們?cè)诩~約錄制了貝多芬和舒伯特的小提琴奏鳴曲，而格里格的第三小提琴奏鳴曲則是在柏林錄制的。"拉赫瑪尼諾夫是我心中的鋼琴家。[他是自布索尼以來(lái)最迷人的鋼琴家。他有一個(gè)秘密，那就是金色的、活生生的、發(fā)自?xún)?nèi)心的、不可模仿的音色。在我看來(lái)，他是一個(gè)比作曲家更偉大的鋼琴家。阿瑟-魯賓斯坦，《我的許多年》烏云開(kāi)始聚集，起初幾乎沒(méi)有威脅，但還是很明顯。1929年著名的證券交易所崩潰使拉赫瑪尼諾夫的財(cái)富大為減少，隨之而來(lái)的經(jīng)濟(jì)不景氣意味著美國(guó)人在唱片上花的錢(qián)少了。1921年，有一億張唱片被售出，但到1931年，這個(gè)數(shù)字已經(jīng)下降到僅有500萬(wàn)張。而市場(chǎng)也在萎縮，特別是由于另一位俄羅斯鋼琴家開(kāi)始征服這個(gè)國(guó)家。弗拉基米爾-霍洛維茨，他錄制的拉赫瑪尼諾夫第三鋼琴協(xié)奏曲被證明是大受歡迎的。拉赫瑪尼諾夫似乎感覺(jué)到，他作為一個(gè)對(duì)自己有最高要求的音樂(lè)會(huì)鋼琴家的職業(yè)生涯正在慢慢接近尾聲。在20世紀(jì)30年代，拉赫瑪尼諾夫在1933年年滿60歲，舉辦音樂(lè)會(huì)變得越來(lái)越困難，利潤(rùn)也越來(lái)越低，因?yàn)樵絹?lái)越多的美國(guó)人買(mǎi)得起票。而歐洲巡演的情況也沒(méi)有好轉(zhuǎn)。拉赫瑪尼諾夫夫婦搬到了瑞士，在那里他們?yōu)樽约航ㄔ炝艘蛔╊R塞恩湖的房子。盡管拉赫瑪尼諾夫現(xiàn)在的作曲比以往任何時(shí)候都多，但他的情況卻很糟糕。1935年，他對(duì)一位記者說(shuō)："我的健康狀況一直很糟糕。"我正在迅速崩潰！" 1939年，在歐洲戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)爆發(fā)前不久，拉赫瑪尼諾夫回到美國(guó)，參加了由尤金-奧曼迪組織的拉赫瑪尼諾夫音樂(lè)節(jié)，他不得不繼續(xù)每年舉辦約60場(chǎng)音樂(lè)會(huì)，盡管現(xiàn)在的結(jié)果有些喜憂參半。在他最后的歲月里，這位現(xiàn)年近七十歲的作曲家不僅僅在他自己的一生中被視為一個(gè)傳奇。從他最后錄制的鋼琴協(xié)奏曲和他對(duì)巴赫第三號(hào)帕蒂塔的改編中可以看出，他也能夠重新獲得他早期鋼琴演奏的魅力。1943年3月28日，他在比佛利山莊的一家診所去世，成為美國(guó)公民：拉赫瑪尼諾夫夫婦在2月1日收到了他們的入籍文件。