It is amazing that Sergei Rachmaninov ever wrote a second symphony. He was so shattered by the terrible premiere of his first symphony in 1897—“the most agonizing hour of my life,” as he later put it—that, for the next three years, he suffered from chronic depression, and struggled day after day with a composer’s worst fear—the inability to write a page of music worth saving.
Sketches for a new symphony were abandoned, and work on an opera, Francesca da Rimini, was shelved. Rachmaninov visited Leo Tolstoy, hoping that contact with the great, larger-than-life novelist would stimulate his creativity, but their conversations discouraged him even more.
Finally, at his friends’ insistence, in 1900 Rachmaninov went to see Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a psychiatrist noted for treating alcoholism through hypnosis. After four months of Dahl’s hypnosis—“You will work with great facility” was one of the doctor’s often-repeated leitmotifs—Rachmaninov suddenly recovered.
He not only began to compose again—and with great facility—but he also soon finished the score that became his most popular work—the Second Piano Concerto, which he dedicated to Dahl. Rachmaninov played the piano solo at the triumphant premiere of the concerto in 1901, proving to the public that he had left his difficulties behind with the old century.
The writing block had been overcome, but if the piano concerto marked the turning point, it was his second symphony that proved his ultimate victory, as well as his vindication.
Here is Valery Gergiev who conducts the Symphony #2 by Sergei Rachmaninov:
