Named in memory of the composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), considered to be the last great figure in the tradition of Russian romanticism, and whose compositions embrace symphonies and piano concerti and preludes. Although his greatest productivity occurred in St. Petersburg and Moscow around the turn of the century, he composed the beautiful “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini” in the United States in 1934, during the exile in which he was principally a concert performer. (M 16046) _ _.