I always liked this composer, and I have purchased quite a bit of his music. Considering that he’s been dead for almost 60 years I would think that he is quite highly regarded. However, I have a friend who is a pianist, and he doesn’t think much of Rachmaninov-sys he’s too noisey!
What is the concensus about this Russian composer-is he one of the all-time greats, or merely and also-ran?
i consider him one of the all time greats.
his all night vigil is beyond words…
not everyone likes every composer. i don’t like mozart, i think he is tooooo foo foo. whenever i say that you would think i did something horrible to a cute, fluffy animal. then again the opinion i have of mozart is that some of his music is cute and fluffy… hhhhhmmmm.
His lush romanticism, placed in the same time as the atonal world of Shoenberg, give it an added melancholy and wistfulness.
Or perhaps its just very Russian.
Years ago, I worked for G. Schirmer, the music publishers (remember those yellow-bound books on your great-aunt’s piano?). I recall the following conversation between co-workers.
Bearded, intense twenty-something ex-music theory major from Cal Tech or someplace equally odd to be a music major who listened to Piere Boulez compositions to unwind at the end of the day: “Rachmaninoff? I always HATED his stuff.”
Elderly vice-president with earthy tastes, shiny bald head, and enormous walrus moustache, who championed the acquisition of Duke Ellington choral music, to the horror of the company Old Guard: “You hate Rachmaninoff? Do you hate SEX, too???”
BITSEMTMFCTSEOTBMMWLTPBCTUATEOTD: “Um, no.”
– Uke, who likes the First Symphony and some of the programmatic stuff like “Isle of the Dead” and “The Bells,” and also the “Liturgy of St. John Chrysostrom,” but steers well clear of most of the R. Catalogue
Rachmaninov! He shakes me! He quakes me! He makes me feel goose-pimply all over! I don’t know who I am—or where I am—or what I’m doing! Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t ever stop!
Sorry. That quote’s too damn good to let this thread sink.
– Uke, scratching that seven-year itch
Dunno what Eve’s referring to, but the gay boy band Pansy Division played off the dignified composer’s name a la “Rockbottomoff”. 
As for the OP, I remember reading an interesting article on just that question through a link on “Arts and Letters Daily”:
Go to the 2002 Archive, and scroll down the titles until the side-cursor is 1" down. Unfortunately [I just checked], the link to that Commentary article is no longer free – although the piece is still available for a price.
The upshot of the piece was, uneasily poised between the Romantic and Modern musical epochs, SR didn’t get much critical respect from his colleagues back in the day, but enjoyed massive popular success nevertheless. Over the course of the 20th C., a general critical reassessment of his work resulted in a healthy measure of due praise, albeit with some residual misgivings.
IMHO, the only controversy that should persist about SR is whether to spell his surname with the -off or -ov. YTMMV [your translator’s mileage may vary]. Anyone who says that his music is just crap can meet me outside, in the alley…
So just chuck it, enjoy his music, and rent David Lean’s classic 1946 tear-jerker, “Brief Encounter” (which makes abundant use of “Rach’s” Concerto No. 2 in E minor), and enjoy a very sentimental sobfest! 
When I was in music school most of the teachers and students liked and had a good appreciation for Rachmaninoff. He was mostly thought of as a composer past his time and the last of the true Romantics. If I remember correctly he died roughly around 1950 which is 50-80 years after the biggest of the Romantics died off (The Romantic Period started with Beethoveen and started dying off shortly after Wagner).
The few people I knew who didn’t appreciate him thought of him as a throwback to the Romantic period who didn’t do anything to advance the music of the day. Of those people, none of them liked Romantic period music in general.
On a side note, I think this is my 100th post.
I am a moderate fan of Rachmaninov, in particular his choral music, having sung both the Vespers (All Night Vigil) and the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (Bogorodyitse Dyevo from the Vespers is going to be sung at my wedding, whenever that might be, and whatever the hypothetical bridegroom might have to say about it). His instrumental music doesn’t rock my boat as much as, say, a good dose of JSB, but the piano concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini are good wholesome fun, with nice tunes for concert-goers to hum in the carpark.
However, what consistently amazes me about Rachmaninov, and I think what the critics and musicologists object to, is that he was writing what he was writing at the time he was writing it. Let me give you a few dates (courtesy of the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music):
1894: Debussy Prelude a l’Arpres-midi d’un faune
1906: Rach Symphony no. 2
1909: Rach Piano Concerto no. 3
1912: Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire
1913: Stravinsky Rite of Spring
1915 Rach Vespers
1921: Schoenberg Piano Suite Op 25 - the first true twelve-tone work
1934: Rach Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
1935: Gershwin Porgy and Bess
1936: Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
I could go on all night - but I’m sure you get the idea. The man was a complete anachronism - he somehow managed to compose as if he was oblivious to the truly amazing upheavals going on around him in music. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with his music because of that. Lots of listeners and lots of performers love Rachmaninov, but musicologists and composers tend to be a bit dismissive because he was so counter-innovative. I wouldn’t call him an all-time great by any means, but having said that, it would be interesting to do a performance count - how much more frequently do you think Rach’s Second Symphony gets performed compared with Pierrot Lunaire or Rite of Spring?
Rachmaninoff was pretty roundly panned by the critics of his day, but his music was well received by the public.
Vaudeville took the melody for Full Moon & Empty Arms from his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. Eric Carmen also took part of his song * All By Myself* from the same piece. Another Carmen song, Never Gonna Fall in Love Again, borrows the melody for the refrain from a Rachmaninoff piece as well, although the title escapes me.
I rank Rachmaninoff right up there with Chopin for piano compositions. He can be bombastic, but he wrote some beautiful melodies.
i agree with Rocking Chair concerning mozart…too foo foo for my taste as well. Rachmaninov On a side note, when I was in high school, The marching band would perform rachmoninov, tschaicovsky, brahms, and other composers of that sort. None of that stars’n stripes ‘corngrinder’ stuff. Ahhh good times, good times.
I’m not terribly familiar with much of his music. Vocalise is sublime, though.