THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7

become permanent conductor of the Boston Symphony,
but he declined the offer and returned to Russia in
February 1910.
The one notable composition of Rachmaninoff ’s
second period of residence in Moscow was his choral
symphony The Bells (1913), based on Konstantin Balmont’s
Russian translation of the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. This
work displays considerable ingenuity in the coupling of
choral and orchestral resources to produce striking imi-
tative and textural effects.

Later Years

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Rachmaninoff went
into his second self-imposed exile, dividing his time
between residences in Switzerland and the United States.
Although for the next 25 years he spent most of his time
in an English-speaking country, he never mastered its
language or thoroughly acclimatized himself. With his
family and a small circle of friends, he lived a rather iso-
lated life. He missed Russia and the Russian people—the
sounding board for his music, as he said. And this alien-
ation had a devastating effect on his formerly prolific
creative ability. He produced little of real originality but
rewrote some of his earlier work. Indeed, he devoted
himself almost entirely to concertizing in the United
States and Europe, a field in which he had few peers. His
only substantial works from this period are the Symphony
No. 3 in A Minor (1936), another expression of sombre,
Slavic melancholy, and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
for piano and orchestra, a set of variations on a violin
caprice by Niccolò Paganini. Rachmaninoff ’s last major
work, the Symphonic Dances for orchestra, was composed
in 1940, about two years before his death.