S. Rachmaninov : Prelude in Gb Major op 23 no 10
In advance of the publication of KHRUSHCHEV’S PIANO in November, Caroline has been learning some music by composers featured in the book. One central figure, Rachmaninov, received mixed reviews from the Soviet regime. He left his native Russia soon after the October Revolution of 1919, to live permanently in exile, eventually settlign in the United States. In the early days, the Soviets reviled him as a “bourgeois émigré”. But by the 1960s when the historical strand of Caroline’s book is set, they’d come round, and even started to claim works like this lovely prelude as a proud part of Russia’s national heritage.