Reconstructing Rachmaninoff's case
Around January 1900 Sergei Rachmaninoff went into hypnotherapy with Nikolai Vladimirovich Dahl. He had not composed large scores ever since the fiasco of his First Symphony and the therapy was mainly directed at overcoming this problem. Treatments occurred daily over a period that cannot have lasted longer than three months or so. The patient was cured. In gratitude Rachmaninoff dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to Dahl.
Reconstructing Rachmaninoff's case
Around January 1900 Sergei Rachmaninoff went into hypnotherapy with Nikolai Vladimirovich Dahl. He had not composed large scores ever since the fiasco of his First Symphony and the therapy was mainly directed at overcoming this problem. Treatments occurred daily over a period that cannot have lasted longer than three months or so. The patient was cured. In gratitude Rachmaninoff dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to Dahl.
Perhaps it is not surprising that this short episode in Rachmaninoff's life gave rise to a lot of speculation. It is remarkable though, especially considering the matters at stake, that subsequent biographers have never really investigated the case. Consequently, lack of serious research has fuelled myths about Doctor Dahl, doubts about Rachmaninoff's mental make-up, about the strength of his self-confidence and, even worse, about his craftsmanship and his ability to compose in the first place.
Dr. Dahl and hypnotherapy
From the rise of Freudianism until about a decade and a half ago, hypnotherapy was out of favour as a treatment. Sigmund Freud had strong misgivings about the therapy. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, the therapy proved rather successful: Dahl, for a fact, cured Rachmaninoff, whereas Freud did not cure Mahler. [1]
Hypnosis has been used in medical practice ever since Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Mesmer worked in Vienna, and later at the French Court. In fact, Mesmer thought he was practising a form of magnetism. He did report his findings to various scientific societies however and, with hindsight, we can now conclude that he induced a hypnotic state known as ‘crisis’ in his patients. It was Marquis Armand de Puységur (1751-1825) who discovered the tranquil trance that James Braid (1795-1860) later termed ‘neurohypnology’ – nervous sleep. His contemporary John Elliotson (1791-1868) began to use hypnosis as anaesthetic at his London hospital – to perform painless surgery. Meanwhile two schools of hypnosis were founded in France. The French neurologist Jean Charcot (1825-1893) started a school of hypnosis in his neurological clinic at the Salpêtrière in Paris, while Hippolyte Bernheim (1837-1919) founded the Nancy School of Hypnosis. Charcot initially thought that hypnosis was a phenomenon related to hysteria and could be produced only in hysterical patients, but he was converted by Bernheim, who had analysed over 10,000 cases and had come to the conclusion that hypnosis was produced by suggestion. [2]
Most probably prepared by the composer’s sister-in-law Sophia Alexandrovna Satin, herself no mean scientist, the Bertensson & Leyda biography ‘Sergei Rachmaninoff – a lifetime in music’ provides the most accurate account of Dahl’s treatment.
[Rachmaninoff’s] cousins, his aunt, and their friend, Dr. Grauermann, thought it was time to take some positive step, and they agreed that he should be persuaded to see Dr. Nikolai Dahl. Dr. Dahl has been a friend of Grauermann’s at Moscow University, and had specialised in internal medicine. After graduation he became interested in the therapeutic values of hypnosis that were then being explored in France, and his first successes on the treatment made him devote his entire practice to this method... .. Rachmaninoff surprised his cousins by agreeing, without resistance, to see the doctor. He was desperate enough about his dark present and darker future to try anything suggested to him. Even his lack of money was no obstacle, for many of Dahl’s patients were treated without charge, and any embarrassment felt by Rachmaninoff on this score was overcome. Dr. Dahl’s apartment was only a few doors from the Satin’s and Rachmaninoff visited the doctor daily. These sessions in Dr. Dahl’s study, with Rachmaninoff seated in a deep comfortable armchair, were concentrated on helping him to sleep soundly and peacefully every night, to brighten his daytime mood, to improve his appetite, and above all, to reawaken his desire to compose. Actual hypnosis was supplemented by general conversation, and as Dahl was a cultured and musically intelligent man, these talks must have enhanced the salutary effects of the treatment... [3]
From this document, from our knowledge of Rachmaninoff’s method of composition, and our knowledge of hypnotherapy around the turn of the century it is not difficult to reconstruct a case that was less complex than some suppose.
Rachmaninoff’s creative process
Rachmaninoff’s creative process was exceptional. Compositions used to come to him in their entirety and it might take him no more than two to three weeks – sometimes less – to sketch larger forms.
Few composers conceive works instantly and even fewer possess the gift of memorising more than a few pages. [5] Most composers work long and hard over every single motif and every single voice. Because their creation process takes so much longer, they are usually more attached to their brainchild than Rachmaninoff seems to have been. After the failure of the First Symphony, the composer began to doubt his intuition and it appears from letters he wrote at various stages in his life, that he no longer trusted his own judgement. He often sought the advice of friends about new works, and sometimes even reconciled their form to what he thought was the general norm – hence the many cuts he sanctioned, made, or authorised.
The case & the cure
As is clear from the Bertensson & Leyda excerpt above as well as from the composer’s own, less accurate, description in ‘Rachmaninoff’s Recollections told to Oskar von Riesemann’ [6], Dahl obviously chose the novel method of ‘Post-hypnotic Suggestion’ to cure his patient. Three essential remarks must be made before arriving at a reliable reconstruction of Rachmaninoff’s case [7]:
Post-hypnotic suggestion can cure minor ailments only. If Rachmaninoff’s inability to compose were a formidable problem, he would certainly not have been cured this way!
Hypnosis cannot make a subject perform tasks he or she is incapable to perform.
Dahl’s treatment was intense, but spanned a relatively short period.
Regarding the patient, two observations must be made.
Although Rachmaninoff had not finished larger works, he had been very active in the years following the fiasco of the First Symphony. He had started a successful career as a conductor and made a tour of England as a pianist. It seems that his creative problem nagged him mostly during the summer months, in periods when he was not active in other fields.
Rachmaninoff produced a greater number of large-scale compositions in the years immediately following Dahl’s treatment than he had done before, or subsequently.
From these remarks and observations a clear picture emerges: Rachmaninoff probably was not so much unable to compose – rather he felt uneasy about committing his music to paper. Dahl therefore aimed his treatment at disarming the negative thoughts that assailed Rachmaninoff whenever he had time to compose. In such cases ‘Post-hypnotic Suggestion’ is a perfect method to use.
This view is supported by a marked discontinuity of style [8] between Op. 17 and Op. 25 that suggests some works must have been conceived in earlier stylistic phase and also by Rachmaninoff’s own account of the suggestions made to him under hypnosis: Consequently I heard the same hypnotic formulae repeated day after day while I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dahl’s study: ‘You will begin to write your Concerto… You will work with great facility… The Concerto will be of an excellent quality...’ It was always the same, without interruption. [9]
The account is inaccurate. Phrases like ‘You will begin to write your Concerto… You will work with great facility…The Concerto will be of excellent quality’ are commanding rather than suggestive. We have to ascribe the inaccuracy either to Riesemann’s transcription or to Rachmaninoff’s summary. However, the phrases are sufficiently close to lead to the words Dahl may indeed have used (my additions are in italics) ‘Once you will begin to write your concerto, musical thoughts will come to you freely and effortlessly. You will pick up your pen. You will write with great facility. The Concerto will be of excellent quality…’
Dahl succeeded in helping Rachmaninoff to overcome his ‘writer’s block’. The therapy successfully brought a relief of symptoms, in this case the writer’s block, but it did not seem to be aimed at changing the patient’s personality structurally – the combined conflicts that caused the problem seem to have been insufficiently treated. Therefore, it is not surprising that a repetitive pattern remained. [10] Symptoms returned whenever the composer was at a dead end, most prominently in 1916. It was only in the last decade of his life that it seemed Rachmaninoff had finally overcome his difficulties. And that was possibly because, leading the life of a pianist, he hardly had any time to compose, so he was forced to stick longer to his musical ideas and thus develop a closer relationship to his own music. He answered all criticism of the Third Symphony Op. 44: ‘Personally, I am firmly convinced that this is a good work’, although he added, ‘but sometimes the author is wrong too.’ [11]
Conclusion
Rachmaninoff’s problem has generally been overrated. The composer’s ‘writer’s block’ – rather than ‘creative block’ – originated in the friction between his method of composition, the trauma inflicted by the failure of the First Symphony and the peculiarities of his personality. It was restricted to the process of committing his music to paper. The intervention of Dr. Dahl was of vital importance in temporarily overcoming the ‘writer’s block’. Dahl, who was acquainted with the latest treatments practised in France at the time, used ‘Post-hypnotic Suggestion’ to cure his patient. Still, he solved the symptom, not the problem.
This conclusion however, does not answer all questions. Why did Rachmaninoff visit Dahl only in 1900 and not earlier on? Why did Rachmaninoff maintain [12] that not only Dahl was his doctor, but that the same applied to his cousins, Sophia Alexandrovna Satin and Natalya (his future wife)? Why was the treatment ‘supplemented by general conversation’? And most of all: why does the Bertensson & Leyda book refer to sleeping problems, melancholy and loss of appetite?
Recommendations for further research
It is quite well possible that an important detail was consciously suppressed. Sleeping problems, melancholy and loss of appetite allude to a depression. Since Rachmaninoff had hardly showed signs of depression before 1900 (you cannot build a conductor’s career in such a state) there must have been an acute reason for it. [13]
Recently, Rachmaninoff’s grandson Alexandre has provided his own solution to the Dahl matter. He maintains that Dahl’s pretty daughter had a greater effect on the composer than the good doctor himself did. [14] Of course, I would not necessarily deny the influence of a possible [15] daughter beforehand. Perhaps it was she who brought them into contact? Still, a love affair alone – unless it was broken prior to January 1900 – does not answer any of the remaining questions about the composer’s state of mind before he came to Dahl. These and other matters are precisely the ones that urgently require further research. As long as we do not have a clear picture of what happened shortly before the composer went into therapy, the story of Rachmaninoff’s life will remain incomplete.
Even so, this article does establish that there is no reason to doubt the composer’s own acknowledgement of Dahl’s successful treatment which he voiced repeatedly both in public and in private.
Elger Niels
The author would like to thank Désirée van Oldenborgh (clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, who did some research in the field of cognitive self-hypnosis) for her expert opinion and Maurice and Alex Kouguell (sons of pianist and conductor Arkadie Kouguell, a friend of Nikolai Dahl – Dahl’s son taught cello to Alex) as well as David Kurani (his sister also studied cello with Dahl’s son) for their recollections and help.
Mahler sought Freud’s advice after a crisis in his marriage.
Based on Roy Udolph, ‘Handbook of hypnosis for Professionals’, 2nd edition, 1987, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc., ISBN 0-442-28531-0, pp. 2-10.
Sergei Bertensson & Jay Leyda, ‘Rachmaninoff – A Lifetime in Music’, 1956 New York University Press, current edition, with an introduction by David Butler Cannata, 2001 Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-21421-1
Elger Niels, liner notes to CD Ondine 977-2
Only Mozart springs to mind.
See [9]
1 and 2 are based on information in Roy Udolph, ‘Handbook of Hypnosis for Professionals’, 2nd edition, 1987, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc., ISBN 0-442-28531-0
Not only does the Second Piano Concerto, Op. 18, sound ‘earlier’ than the Suite for Two Pianos Op. 17, both the Cantata ‘Vyesna’ Op. 20 and the greater part of Francesca da Rimini Op. 25 seem to belong an even earlier stylistic phase.
Oskar von Riesemann ‘Rachmaninoff’s Recollections told to Oskar von Riesemann’ translated from the German manuscript by Mrs Dolly Rutherford, 1934 The Macmillan Company New York, page 112.
In a letter to Marietta Shaginian of May 8, 1912, translated and published in B&L (see [2]) page 179, Rachmaninoff writes: ‘But the illness hangs on to me tenaciously and with the passing years digs in ever more deeply, I fear.’
Rachmaninoff in a letter of June 7 to Vladimir Vilshaw, cited after B&L (see [3]) page 330.
In the same letter as mentioned in [10]
In his introduction to the 2001 edition of Bertensson & Leyda biography (see [3}) David Cannata includes a list of suggested changes drawn up by Oxford University Press, as they were still considering publication: ‘It was felt more material should be included on the following:
The Death of Wolkonsky |
Rachmaninoff’s marriage and courtship |
Reviews of first performances to be found in Musical Gazette, etc.|
The story of the First Symphony’ Bertensson and Leyda only answered the third suggestion adequately. The remaining three were left blank. Except for a more detailed account of Wolkonsky’s death provided by Sophia Vladimirovna Satin in her memoirs (‘A 20th Century Life’, The Rachmaninoff Society, London 1997) the ‘story of the First Symphony’ as well as a detailed account of ‘Rachmaninoff’s marriage and courtship’ have never been offered. Both questions could be related to the suppressed information.
Jessica Duchen ‘Man for all people’, Guardian Unlimited, April 30, 1999
I have not been able to establish her existence. Dahl did have a son Nikolai Nikolaievich, also known as Nicolas Dale, he was a cellist and played the trombone as a jazz musician. Nicolas was born around 1895.
Other sources:
David Butler Cannata, ‘Rachmaninoff and the Symphony’ Bibliotheca Musicologica, University of Innsbruck vol. IV, 1999 Studien Verlag Ges.m.b.H., Innsbruck, ISBN 3-7065-1240-8
Robert Threlfall & Geoffrey Norris, ‘A Catalogue of the Compositions of Sergei Rachmaninoff’, 1982 Scolar Press, London
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