CRAIG BROWN: Marx my words, that will annoy Rachmaninoff!… Or how Harpo pulled his strings to get one over the Russian virtuoso
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2 was recently voted top of the pops in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame, beating the ever-popular The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams.
It’s doubtful whether Rachmaninoff would have been delighted by this popular accolade. He was a gloomy character and, like many artistes, grew to loathe his most popular pieces.
He composed his second most popular piece, the Prelude In C-Sharp Minor, in 1892 when he was just 19. It seemed to come into his head from nowhere. ‘It came with such force that I could not shake it off even though I tried to do so,’ he recalled, decades later.
It received immediate acclaim, and was to haunt him for the rest of his life. Whatever else he played, audiences would never be satisfied until they had heard the Prelude In C-Sharp Minor.
‘The big annoyance of my concert life is my C-Sharp Minor Prelude . . . people ALWAYS make me play it. By now I play it without feeling — like a machine!’ he harrumphed.
‘It’s doubtful whether Rachmaninoff would have been delighted by this popular accolade. He was a gloomy character’
‘Musicians and singers often despise their most popular tunes. Frank Sinatra ended up loathing My Way’
He himself preferred all his other preludes. ‘I think them far better music than my first, but the public has shown no disposition to share my belief.’
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Decades later, on tours of the world’s concert halls, he would dutifully trot out the Prelude In C-Sharp Minor, but his delivery was often grudging. At a performance in London in 1931, one critic complained that Rachmaninoff ‘flung it at the audience like a bone to a dog’.
Musicians and singers often despise their most popular tunes. Frank Sinatra ended up loathing My Way.
‘I hate this song. I hate this song,’ he muttered in front of an audience in 1979, before singing it for the umpteenth time.
He also hated his ever-popular Strangers In The Night, introducing it with the words: ‘Here’s a song that I cannot stand.’
Other stars have been similarly conflicted about their keynote songs. Liam Gallagher of Oasis once said of Wonderwall ‘I can’t f****** stand that f****** song. Every time I have to sing it, I want to gag.’
Radiohead grew fed up with their song Creep, particularly after they noticed some fans leaving immediately after they had sung it. Their singer Thom Yorke once refused to perform it, snapping: ‘F*** off, we’re tired of it.’
By 1931, Sergei Rachmaninoff had been playing his Prelude in C-Sharp Minor for 43 years, on and off. Resting between concerts in Texas and Chicago, he stayed in a fashionable bohemian Los Angeles hotel called The Garden Of Allah, which consisted of 25 bungalows situated in lush grounds.
Henry Kissinger, Mercedes Bass and Sergei Rachmaninoff attend an annual benefit honoring Donald M. Kendall at the Four Seasons Restaurant
By chance, Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers was already in the neighbouring bungalow, and was furious at the intrusion of a pianist next door. ‘I was looking forward to a solid weekend of practice on my harp, without interruptions, when my new neighbour started to bang away . . . There were no signs the piano banging was going to stop. It only got more overpowering.’
Harpo strode over to the reception. ‘One of us has to go,’ he said, ‘and it’s not going to be me, because I was here first.’
The management had no wish to upset the eminent Mr Rachmaninoff. Eventually, Harpo (left) realised they would never ask such an illustrious guest to move, so, knowing of Rachmaninoff’s hatred of his own most famous composition, he devised a cunning plan involving his harp.
He recalled: ‘I opened the door and all the windows in my place and began to play the first four bars of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude In C-Sharp Minor, over and over, fortissimo. He wished he’d never written it. After playing it for two hours I knew exactly how he felt . . . My fingers were getting numb.
‘But I didn’t let up, not until I heard a thunderous crash of notes from across the way, like the keyboard had been attacked with a pair of sledgehammers. Then there was silence. This time it was Rachmaninoff who went to complain. He asked to be moved to another bungalow immediately, the farthest possible from that dreadful harpist.’
Six years later, the Marx Brothers produced one of their funniest films, A Day At The Races. Harpo appears in it, playing a piano with amazing ferocity. Eventually, the piano is reduced to smithereens.
And the tune he is playing? The Prelude in C-Sharp Minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
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