Ivanovka

Available for 6 days

Donald Macleod explores Rachmaninov’s life in exile from Russia and attachment to the country estate he left behind: Ivanovka. Sergei Rachmaninov became one of the finest pianists of his generation, touring the world in the 1920s and 30s as a musical megastar. Composing had been his real passion since childhood, and towards the end of his time in Russia before the Revolution, it was farming. Though St Petersburg and then Moscow was his base for much of his early life, it was Ivanovka – a country estate deep in the Russian countryside - that formed him. The house and the land surrounding it were a major source of his creative inspiration until his last visit in 1917. Donald Macleod explores how important Ivanovka was to Rachmaninov, and how he carried the precious memory of it with him when he left it behind for a life of exile. In today’s programme, Donald Macleod tells the story of Rachmaninov’s first visit to Ivanovka, the country estate of his cousins, as a teenager. He initially found the landscape around it boring and oppressive, but he soon came to love this sleepy place, wrote his first Piano Concerto there, and when he got married was gifted a house on the estate. Lilacs op 21 no 5: Siren Sergei Rachmaninov, piano Piano Concerto No. 1 (mvt 1) Leif Ove Andsnes, piano Berliner Philharmoniker Antonio Pappano, conductor Dances from Aleko Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Vasily Petrenko, conductor Cello Sonata in G minor (mvt 1) Bruno Philippe, cello Jerome Ducros, piano Vesna Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre BBC Philharmonic Gianandrea Noseda, conductor