The Lighter Classics in Music by David Ewen

1873. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory for three years, and

his musical training ended at the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 when he received a gold medal for a one-act opera, _Aleko_. In that same year he also wrote the Prelude in C-sharp minor with which he became world famous. His first piano concerto and his first symphony, however, were dismal failures. In 1901 he scored a triumph with his Second Piano Concerto which, since then, has been not only the composer’s most celebrated composition in a large form but also one of the best loved and most frequently performed piano concertos of the 20th century. Rachmaninoff combined his success as composer with that as piano virtuoso. Beginning with 1900 he toured the world of music achieving recognition everywhere as one of the most renowned concert artists of his generation. The first of his many tours of America took place in