Among the many recordings of Rakhmaninov's piano playing left after his death, there is one very short piece which always especially moves one. It is not even one of his own works, but a piece from Chaikovsky's The Seasons- November: Troika Ride. Rakhmaninov plays Chaikovsky's music as though he had composed it himself. And if we knew absolutely nothing about Rakhmaninov's life and experiences abroad, the recording of Troika Ride would reveal the whole truth to us. In Chaikovsky's piece Rakhmaninov, one feels, expresses all his terrible home-sickness and loneliness- loneliness which he felt despite his world-wide fame, success, inumrable concert tours, etc. For Rakhmaninov Troika Ride was full of cherised memories of his native land and irretrievable past.