The Bells (symphony) - Composition

Composition

Rachmaninoff wrote to his friend Morozoff in December 1906, asking whether he could think of a suitable subject for a choral piece to follow his cantata Spring. Nothing came of this request. However, while on a holiday in Rome, Italy early in 1907, Rachmaninoff received an anonymous letter containing a copy of Balmont's translation of The Bells. The sender asked him to read the verses, suggesting they were suitable for musical setting and would especially appeal to him. This suggestion was both extremely sensitive and opportune. It was only after the composer's death that the identity of the sender was found to have been Maria Danilova, who was then a young cello student at the Moscow Conservatory.

Nor was Rachmaninoff the only composer to whom Poe's writing would appeal. The English composer Joseph Holbrooke set The Bells in their original language for chorus and orchestra. His piece had been performed in Birmingham under conductor Hans Richter in 1906. Earlier, in Russia, Mikhail Andreyevich Ostroglazoff had composed a one-act opera based on "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1896. Nikolai Tcherepnin would write a ballet on the same subject in 1922. Nikolai Myaskovsky composed his symphonic poem Nevermore, based on "The Raven," in 1909. At the same time Rachmaninoff composed The Bells, his compatriot Mikhail Gnesin was writing The Conqueror Worm for tenor and orchestra, based on Balmont's translation of "Ligeia."