How the manuscript of Rachmaninoff’s ‘Symphony No. 2’, sought after by musicologists & investors, was returned

The Russian Music Publishing (RMP) is preparing to release a unique scholarly publication – the autograph manuscript of ‘Symphony No. 2’ by the brilliant Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. The digital copy of the manuscript, long thought to be lost, was handed over to the publishing house by American collector Robin Lehman (Robert Owen Lehman Jr.). The hunt for this rare document has been going on for the past 20 years.

The Missing Manuscript

The autograph manuscript of the Second Symphony in E minor

‘Symphony No. 2’ holds a central place in Rachmaninoff’s work. Written between 1907 and 1908 in Dresden, it marked the composer’s return to creativity following the failure of his ‘Symphony No. 1’, which had dealt him a serious emotional blow. Rachmaninoff himself wrote:

“After this [first] symphony, I did not compose anything for nearly three years. I was like a man who had suffered a stroke and, for a long time, both my head and hands were paralyzed… I will not show this symphony to anyone and will even stipulate in my will that it should not be looked at.”

The premiere of ‘Symphony No. 2’ took place on January 8 (21), 1908, at the Mariinsky Theater, conducted by the composer himself. It finally brought him long-awaited success.

Rachmaninoff in the late 1920s

However, the original autograph manuscript of ‘Symphony No. 2’ was lost for many decades. Only in 2004 did it unexpectedly appear at a Sotheby’s auction, drawing immense interest from the music community.

Rachmaninoff’s archive of sheet music is considered to be well-preserved – most of his works have survived to this day as fair-copy autographs or in lifetime editions with corrections made by the composer. However, due to his forced departure from Russia in 1917, Rachmaninoff’s documents ended up scattered across libraries, museums, archives and private collections in Russia, the United States and Western Europe.

“The value of Rachmaninoff’s autograph manuscripts lies in the fact that they reveal an unknown and unpublished Rachmaninoff that the global music community has not heard yet. It is, in fact, a rediscovery in many ways,” explains Dmitry Dmitriev, head of the Russian Music Publishing, emphasizing the significance of this find.

When the manuscript surfaced, Rachmaninoff’s grandson, Alexandre Rachmaninoff, who lived in Switzerland, planned to sue the anonymous owner in order to prove they had no rights to the manuscript. For years, Alexandre worked to promote his grandfather’s legacy, organizing festivals and competitions in his name and supporting young, talented musicians.

Alexandre Rachmaninoff, grandson of the great composer

Alexandre was determined. “He called and very emotionally began to express his indignation – he wanted to sue, to get it back immediately, to impose fines and so on,” Dmitriev recalls. “We quickly realized that his emotional response could prove fatal and we might lose this unique autograph manuscript for another 50-80 years.”

In the end, Dmitriev’s reasoning prevailed. Alexandre agreed to leave the lot at auction and reached a settlement with the owner. Sotheby’s reclassified the auction as a closed sale and the score was sold to the Tabor Foundation for £800,000. The foundation pledged to place it on deposit in the British Library in London and provide researchers with access.

It seemed that the autograph manuscript of ‘Symphony no. 2’ would finally see the light of day. But no one could have imagined that it would once again disappear from scholars’ view for many years.

A Profitable Business

Original manuscripts of musical works command enormous prices and are rarely put up for sale. In 2016, an anonymous buyer purchased the autograph manuscript of Gustav Mahler’s ‘Symphony No. 2’ at Sotheby’s for £4.5 million, a document later recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most expensive musical manuscript ever sold at auction.

“An autograph manuscript is the closest and most authentic source of the text of a work. It captures all the details of the author’s intent,” Dmitriev explains. According to him, when a handwritten text is transferred into print, interpretations emerge, many details are lost and the result often deviates from the author’s version. “For this reason, any autograph – whether it’s by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart or Rachmaninoff – is worth such money,” Dmitriev says.

In Dmitriev’s opinion, the Tabor Foundation acquired the autograph manuscript of ‘Symphony No. 2’ purely as an investment asset for subsequent resale. The risk of potential digital copies spreading threatened to diminish the manuscript’s uniqueness and its value at future auctions. Over ten years, researchers were only able to study a few pages of the autograph manuscript, which had been digitized for the Sotheby’s auction booklet.

The Return of ‘Symphony No. 2’

Rachmaninoff in 1936

The Tabor investors ultimately came out ahead. In 2014, after the death of Alexandre Rachmaninoff, the manuscript of ‘Symphony No. 2’ reappeared at auction and was sold for £1.2 million to American collector and philanthropist Robert Owen Lehman Jr. The art collection assembled by the Lehman family is regarded as one of the finest private collections in the United States. The autograph manuscript of ‘Symphony No. 2’ was placed on deposit at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

Unlike its previous owners, Lehman decided to share the unique manuscript with the world. He provided a digital copy to RMP for the preparation of the first scholarly edition of ‘SymphonyNo. 2’. At the time of writing, work on deciphering the autograph manuscript is still currently underway at RMP.

This decision followed Lehman’s introduction to the ‘Sergei Rachmaninoff. Critical Edition of the Complete Works’ (RCW) project, as well as discussions with colleagues from the British Library, who informed him of the manuscript’s initial rescue at the Sotheby’s auction in 2004.

S. V. Rachmaninoff International Competition

Dmitriev describes Lehman’s gesture as a unique example of international cooperation. “These precedents demonstrate that, in every country, there are people – of any nationality or citizenship – who are capable of speaking not in the language of ultimatums, but as human beings,” he asserts.

READ MORE: 10 KEY facts about Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff