Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rachmaninoff was a composer who was the last great figure of the tradition of Russian Romanticism, and a leading piano virtuoso of his time. He is especially known for his piano concerti, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and the choral masterpiece All-Night Vigil (Vespers). Rachmaninoff's music, although written mostly in the 20th century, remains firmly entrenched in the 19th-century musical idiom. He was, in effect, the final expression of the tradition embodied by Tchaikovsky -- a melodist of Romantic dimensions still writing in an era of explosive change and experimentation.