Rachmaninoff was always wary of criticizing the Soviet Union. He felt that the Russian people had been sold a bill of goods, and he thought that in his lifetime they would toss the Communists out. He would have been horrified to know it would take 74 years and tens of millions of lives. In 1938 he wrote a letter to the New York Times that was mildly critical of the Soviet Union. Upon publication of that letter, his music was promptly banned by the Soviet government.
In that same year, Rachmaninoff sold his New York and New Jersey properties and decamped for Beverly Hills. When pianist Arthur Rubinstein discovered that both Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky were neighbors, he asked them to come over for dinner at his and Nella’s house in Beverly Hills. Rubinstein was multilingual and fluent in both Russian and French. Both men accepted. Then Rubinstein had doubts.
Rachmaninoff was the ultraconservative romantic, the keeper of the flame for Russian music. Stravinsky was the bad boy of Franco-Russian music. His ballet, “The Rite of Spring,” had caused a riot at its Paris premiere in 1913, and Rubinstein had been in the audience that night to witness it. Having made the invitation, he decided to go through with it.
Upon arriving, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky treaded lightly around each other. Then Stravinsky spoke up shyly.
“Sergei Vassilievich, have you had problems collecting your royalties from the Bolshevik government? I’ve had one hell of time getting them to pay up.”
Igor Stravinsky then heard that rare basso profundo belly laugh of Rechmaninoff’s.
“Igor Fyodorovich, those Communist sons of bitches have been robbing me blind for the past 20 years.”
And the two men became the best of friends.
