Rachmaninoff as a young student

From 1882, nine-year-old Rachmaninoff moved to St Petersburg to study at the conservatoire.

In the comfortable knowledge that, even if he did not practice, his efforts were more successful than those of his classmates, young Sergei grew lazier and lazier. In the end he did nothing at all, showed a marked preference for shirking his lessons, and relied on his talent and on the inspiration of the moment which, as he now says, was merely a way of expressing his laziness. Thus he gradually developed into a little rogue—the terror of the backyards and streets of St. Petersburg. Instead of going to the College of Music he visited the ice rink, which delighted him, and soon developed a skill in skating which he was far from attaining at the piano. Another favourite sport of his was to jump on and off the running trams, which in those days were drawn by horses along the seven-kilometre stretch of the Nevsky Prospect; a very suitable pastime, one will admit, for a budding famous pianist, especially in the winter, when the pavements were glazed over with ice.

O. von Riesemann, Rachmaninoff’s Recollections, Oxon, Routledge, 2015, p. 29.

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