Composer, pianist, and conductor, Serge Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) represented the last of Russia's great Romanticists. The earlier influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers ultimately contributed to Rachmaninoff's development of a distinctive style, noted for its lyricism and orchestral color. His great choral symphony, The Bells, was written in 1913 and reputed to be among the composer's favorites of all his works.
Scored for a large orchestra, solo vocalists, and chorus, the work is loosely based on the brilliant poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Its addition of material from the Russian translation permits Rachmaninoff to develop the themes in a more intense, dark idiom. Indeed, The Bells exhibits an emotional intensity unsur-passed in the composer's later works. Its long, brooding finale contrasts with the liveliness of the preceding movements, and the orchestration reflects the poem's striking symbolism: silver bells for birth, golden bells for marriage, brass bells for fear, and iron bells for death. |
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