Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli

Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov

Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov was born 1 April 1873, Semyonovo, Novgorod Governorate, Russian Empire — died 28 March 1943, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Sergei Rachmaninov was a legendary Russian composer and pianist who emigrated after the Communist revolution of 1917, and became one of the highest paid concert stars of his time, and one of the most influential pianists of the 20th century.

In 1909 Rachmaninov made his first tour of the United States having composed the 3rd Piano Concerto as a calling card. He appeared as a soloist with Gustav Mahler conducting the New York Philharmonic. His further work on merging Russian music with English literature culminated in his adaptation of a poem by Edgar Allan Poe into choral symphony, "The Bells," which Rachmaninov considered to be the best of his works. In 1915 he wrote the choral masterpiece: "All-Night Vigil" (also known as the Vespres), fifteen anthems expressing a plea for peace at a time of war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the destruction of his estate forced him to emigrate. On December 23, 1917, Rachmaninov left Russia on an open sledge carrying only a few books of sheet music.

As a pianist, Rachmaninov made over a hundred recordings and gave over one thousand concerts in America alone between 1918 and 1943. His concert performances were legendary, and he was highly regarded as a virtuoso-pianist with unmatched power and expressiveness.

In 1931, Rachmaninov signed a letter condemning the Soviet regime, that was published in the New York Times. There was retaliation immediately, and his music was condemned by the Soviets as "representative of decadent art." However, the official censorship in the Soviet Union could not stop the popularity of Rachmaninov's music in the rest of the world. During the 1930s and 1940s, he remained one of the highest paid concert stars.

Rachmaninov gave numerous charitable performances, and donated large sums of money to the Allies fighting the Nazis during WWII. He became a US citizen in 1943, just a few days before his death. In his last recital, in February, 1943, Rachmaninov played Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2, featuring the famous "Funeral march."

Akhmedov Valentin 11A

Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli

Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1700–1771) went to Russia in 1716 with his father, Italian sculptor Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Russia became his second homeland where he worked for over 40 years. Empress Elizabeth appointed him to the post of senior court architect in 1730. During 1748-1756 Rastrelli was in charge of the Tsarskoye Selo residence construction. Catherine II, then a Grand Duchess, witnessed the work and compared it with that of mythological Penelope; she wrote, “The house has been pulled down six times to the foundation and then built up again.” On 10 May 1752, Empress Elizabeth ordered to completely rebuild her residence, and on 30 July 1756 Rastrelli presented the brand-new 325-meter-long palace to the Empress, her dazed courtiers and stupefied foreign ambassadors. The sumptuous edifice with a semicircle of service buildings (circumferences) enclosing a courtyard became a unique example of the Russian Baroque style. Its brilliant azure walls, snow-white columns, gold sculpture, and glittering onion-shaped domes created a dazzling, fairyland setting. The lavish exterior was echoed by luxuriously decorated interiors, such as Rastrelli’s suite of state rooms – the Golden Enfilade – laid out in a straight line throughout the whole building. More than 100 kilograms of pure gold were used to gild the sophisticated stucco façade and interior carvings. The architect also designed such park pavilions as the Hermitage, Grotto, Monbijou and Coasting Hill.

Catherine Palace (known until 1910 as the Great Palace of Tsarskoye Selo) museum covers the almost 300-year history of this outstanding edifice and presents the work of architects involved in its construction and decoration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and also with the achievements of the restorers who returned the palace to life after the Second World War. Of the 58 halls destroyed during the war years, 32 have been recreated.

In 1717, while St Petersburg was being created on the banks of the Neva, the architect Johann Friedrich Braunstein started supervising the construction of the first masonry royal residence at Tsarskoye Selo that has gone down in history as “the stone chambers” of Catherine I. During the reign of Empress Elizabeth (the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I) in late 1742 or early 1743 it was decided to enlarge the building. From late 1748 until 1756 the construction of the Tsarskoye Selo residence was directed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1700–1771), the chief architect of the imperial court. On 10 May 1752 Empress Elizabeth signed a decree on the complete reconstruction of the old building and on 30 July 1756 Rastrelli was already presenting his new creation to his crowned mistress and foreign ambassadors.

The next stage in the decoration of the state rooms and living quarters came in the 1770s. The new mistress of the residence, Empress Catherine II, was fascinated with the art of the Ancient World and wanted to have her apartments finished in keeping with current tastes. She entrusted the task to the Scottish architect Charles Cameron (1743–1812), an expert on ancient architecture. The interiors that he created in the Zubov Wing and the North Part of the Palace are marked by refined beauty, austere decoration and especially exquisite finishing. In 1817, on the orders of Emperor Alexander I, the architect Vasily Stasov (1769–1848) created the State Study and a few adjoining rooms that are finished in a commons style – all these rooms were devoted to extolling the brilliant victories that the Russian army won against Napoleon in 1812 and afterwards.

The last note in the symphony of palace state rooms was struck by the new Main Staircase created in 1860–63 by Ippolito Monighetti (1819–1878) in the “Second Rococo” style.

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