The creative identity of Rachmaninoff as a composer is often defined by the words "the Russianmost composer". The objective qualities of Rachmaninoff style and the place of his heritage in the world music historical perspective are expressed in this brief and fragmentary definition. Namely, Rachmaninoff musical and creative activities were the unifying element that combined the creative principles of Moscow (Pyotr Tchaikovsky) and St. Petersburg schools of musical composition into the integral Russian style. The subject "Russia and its predestination", general for all types and genres of Russian art, was finally embodied in Rachmaninoff creative work. From this point of view, Rachmaninoff was both a custodian of traditions of the tradition of the operas by Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky's symphonies, and the interlink in the national tradition succession (this theme was continued in the creative works by Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Georgy Sviridov, Alfred Schnittke, etc.). The distinctive role of Rachmaninoff in the development of national tradition stems from the historical position of Rachmaninoff creative work. He was a contemporary of the Russian October revolution - it was the revolution, embodied in art as a “catastrophe”, “the end of the world”, was the semantic dominant of the topic “Russia and its predestination”.

The composing activity of Rachmaninoff chronologically refers to the period of Russian art, which is usually called “The Silver Age”. The basic creative art method of this period was symbolism; its characteristics were clearly manifested in Rachmaninoff creative work. The compositions of Rachmaninoff w are full of complicated symbolism, expressed by melodies-symbols, the main of which is the part of Medieval chorale “Dies Irae”. This melody symbolizes a catastrophe premonition, Judgement Day, act of vengeance in Rachmaninoff interpretation.

Rachmaninoff (along with Alexander Scriabin and Nikolai Medtner) placed Russian piano music of the 20th century to the global scale; he is one of the first Russian composers whose piano pieces are included in the repertoire of all pianist in the world.

The significance of Rachmaninoff masterly piano performance is equally significant. Rachmaninoff -piano player became the reference for many generations of pianists from different countries and schools, he affirmed the Russian piano school world leadership - the distinctive features of which are: the performance thoroughness, attention to intonational accentuation of music - "the piano singing" - imitation of vocal sounding and intonation.

For the birthday of Sergei Rachmaninoff, we prepared a musical selection of his compositions, digitized from the musical media stored in the museum Collection Musical Library. The Biography of the S. Rachmaninoff is in the section "Authors".