Parallels To Tchaikovsky
Circumstantially and compositionally, The Bells draws parallels between its composer and his former mentor, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff wrote the symphony in Rome, Italy at the same desk Tchaikovsky had used to compose. Compositionally, the four-movement mirroring of life from birth to death meant the finale would be a slow movement. In this and other ways, it is a counterpart to Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony as well as to Gustav Mahler's 4th Symphony (starting with the comparison of the beginnings of both symphonies). Also some see the link between "The Bells" and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. The fourth movement, with its image of the demonic bell-ringer, hearkens to the bedroom scene in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades.
Read more about this topic: The Bells (symphony)
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