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Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was a Russian composer and pianist whose career nearly ended before it properly began. The disastrous premiere of his First Symphony in 1897 left him unable to compose for three years; he was eventually treated by the Moscow physician Dr Nikolai Dahl using hypnotic suggestion, and the Piano Concerto No. 2 that emerged from this recovery was dedicated to Dahl in gratitude. He left Russia after the 1917 revolution and composed only six further works in the remaining twenty-six years of his life, devoting himself instead to a performing career that placed him among the great pianists of the century.

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