Meanwhile : Rachmaninoff and the solace of “Uncle Vanya”

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Meanwhile : Rachmaninoff and the solace of “Uncle Vanya”

Published: 17 Apr. 2026, 00:05

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Na Sung-in

The author is a music critic and director of the classical music brand Poongwoldang.

After the disastrous failure of his Symphony No. 1, Sergei Rachmaninoff withdrew from composition. Around that time, he grew close to the great bass Feodor Chaliapin, and in September 1898 held a recital of art songs in Yalta, a coastal city on the Black Sea. After the performance, an unexpected visitor appeared: the writer Anton Chekhov. “My young friend, I have been watching you for a long time,” Chekhov told him. “Now that I see you in person, I am certain you will become a great figure.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff in his twenties. The photographer is unknown, but is believed to be Mario Nunes Vais. [WIKIPEDIA]

For the 25-year-old Rachmaninoff, the words felt like an oasis in a desert. Deeply moved by that unexpected encouragement, he would later name Chekhov as his favorite writer. He also recalled the moment, saying he would cherish those words with joy for the rest of his life.

Chekhov’s message remained alive within him. Decades later, Rachmaninoff became an exile, forced to leave his homeland, and rose to prominence as one of the most influential pianists of his time. In his youth, the success of his compositions and his ambitions as a performer had taken precedence. With time, however, his perspective shifted. His stature as a celebrated pianist became less an end in itself than a means to support others — fellow artists who seemed to have stepped out of Chekhov’s stories, fragile yet full of dreams, as well as émigrés who, like him, had lost their homelands.

It is not widely known that Rachmaninoff composed a song based on the final monologue of Chekhov’s play “Uncle Vanya (1899).” In that passage, Sonya offers a quiet promise of rest beyond suffering: “We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see the sky shining with diamonds. We shall see all the evil of our lives, all our suffering, sink into the sea of mercy and our life will become quiet, tender, sweet like a caress. I believe it. I believe it.”

Rachmaninoff may have wished, through music, to wipe away the tears of countless “Uncle Vanyas.” In doing so, he perhaps believed he was repaying a debt of gratitude to the writer whose simple words had once restored his spirit. The connection between the two men endured not through collaboration, but through a shared belief that art could console suffering and lend meaning to lives shaped by loss and exile.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.