16 RACHMANINOFF | PRELUDES Is this land the source of inspiration for his Preludes? ‘If I speak of love for the land, it is because it is in my very being,’ he wrote. It plays a large part in this, but it is not the only factor. Rachmaninoff often sought refuge outside Moscow, taking prolonged breaks in the countryside. He felt the need to escape city life to find the peace and quiet he needed to compose, in communion with nature. Nature was an undeniable source of inspiration for him. Ivanovka, his family estate, is often mentioned in his Reflections and Memories: ‘Ivanovka was the steppe, and the steppe is like the sea, boundless. Instead of water, there was an immensity of fields of wheat and oats stretching from horizon to horizon.’ I know this countryside: in the middle of these fields devoid of human presence, one feels a great sense of solitude, a feeling for which the composer had an affinity. His Preludes contain echoes of this. They are like paintings, each one different. Rachmaninoff could have called them Preludes-Tableaux, in the same way as the Études-Tableaux composed after them. Each one has its own colour, mood and unique impression: in the seventh and eighth of Opus 23, you can hear the wind in the wheat, but in two completely different atmospheres and environments. With its undulating bass, the fifth movement of Opus 32 also has a very distinctive atmosphere. Could Rachmaninoff really have been an impressionist? That's the feeling I have when I play them.
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