Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Piano Concerto No. 4 / Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43

'A composer's music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion... It should be the sum total of the composer's experiences. I compose music because I must give expression to my feelings, just as I talk because I must give utterance to my thoughts... I am a Russian composer, and the land of my birth has inevitably influenced my temperament and outlook.' - Sergey Rachmaninov

Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninov was one composer who studied neither law nor medicine (as certain of his musical compatriots had done), but grew up in a musical family and never had any sort of career but a musical one in mind for himself. His paternal grandfather studied the piano with no less a teacher than John Field. Alexander Siloti, the pianist, conductor, pedagogue and general activist for new Russian music, was a cousin and took an interest in the young Rachmaninov's training. In his late teens Rachmaninov had Siloti himself as his piano teacher, and worked with both Taneyev and Arensky in composition. Taneyev, a pupil of Tchaikovsky, brought the young composer to that master's attention, and the year before his own death Tchaikovsky attended the Moscow premiere of Rachmaninov's opera Aleko and saluted him as an equal; Rachmaninov had just turned 20, but had already performed the first version of his First Piano Concerto and had composed numerous other works.