Symphony

Rachmaninoff's youthful Symphony in D minor was composed in 1891, when the composer was only 18 years old and still studying at the Moscow Conservatory. The work already displays the characteristic features of his later musical language: expansive, melancholy-lyrical melodies, typically Russian longing, and virtuosic orchestral treatment. Though still clearly influenced by his models Tchaikovsky and Borodin, Rachmaninoff's individual harmonic boldness and his predilection for dark, romantic tonal colors are already evident.

The symphony stands in the tradition of Russian national romanticism, but already combines Western European formal traditions with a specifically Russian sound idiom. Here Rachmaninoff develops that orchestral density and emotional intensity that would distinguish his later masterworks. The scoring for large orchestra already enables the contrasts of sound typical of the composer between intimate chamber music passages and powerful tutti outbursts.

The work is said to have long been considered lost and was not rediscovered until the 1940s. Despite its character as a youthful work, the symphony demonstrates Rachmaninoff's extraordinary talent and his already well-developed sense of dramatic effect and lyrical expression.