RACHMANINOFF'S DEATH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 74, 29 March 1943, Page 3

RACHMANINOFF'S DEATH

PIANIST AND COMPOSER Rec. 2 p.m. NEW YORK, Mar. 28. The death is announced of Rachmaninoff, pianist and composer, from pneumonia. He became an American citizen in February. Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Onega in 1873. He tiegan his musical studies as a child and later studied at the Petrograd and Moscow Conservatoires. An intimate friend of Tchekoff, he - also knew Tschaikowsky and Tolstoy. He first appeared in London in 1899 at a Philharmonic concert in the triple role of pianist, conductor and composer, His first United States tour began in 1909, and in 1918, having been driven out of Russia by the revolution in which he lost his hardearned fortune, he settled in New York. For some time he worked with Edison to secure purity of tone in gramophone records. Rachmaninoff's fame rests both on' his gifts as a pianist and' on the originality and nobility of his compositions. Rachmaninoff hated broadcast music, refusing to believe that it did justice to the musician. He disliked most modern music, but loved "good jazz' of the American type. In 1932 he was presented with the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. In his later years he composed little, but was at the height of his fame as a pianist.