CUI’S BRUTAL REVIEW

César Cui’s review of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1 in The News and Exchange Gazette on March 17, 1897, said in part:

“If there were a conservatory in Hell, and if one of its talented students were to compose a program symphony based on the story of the ten plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff’s, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell. To us this music leaves an evil impression with its broken rhythms, obscurity and vagueness of form, meaningless repetition of the same short tricks, the nasal sound of the orchestra, the strained crash of the brass, and above all its sickly perverse harmonization and quasi-melodic outlines, the complete absence of simplicity and naturalness, the complete absence of themes.”

Rachmaninoff withdrew his first symphony from future performances and never heard it again, but it was reintroduced to the music world at a Moscow Conservatory concert in 1945. Since then, it has been frequently performed and recorded and is now considered part of the standard orchestral repertory.