Twenty-seven years ago a lean, gloomy Russian with a long face and convict haircut heard his Prelude in C-sharp Minor crash across the U. S. on a thousand pianos and make him famous. Long before that time Sergei Vassilievitch Rachmaninoff had been charming Europe with his brooding, regretful compositions, bewildering concertgoers with his speed and skill on the piano. But one ambition, to write a great symphony, he had not achieved. His First Symphony, in 1897, fell so flat that he needed a hypnotist to restore his nerve. His Second, in 1908, fared...
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