In autumn 1885 Sergey Rachmaninoff moved to Moscow and lived in the private boarding school (musical pension) of Nikolai Zverev, a well-known pedagogue who had opened the school in 1870. Zverev had taught piano at the Moscow Conservatory since 1870 and became a professor there in 1883. Rachmaninoff was admitted to the third year of the conservatory’s junior division in Zverev’s class.
Rachmaninoff spent four years in Zverev’s boarding school, where strict discipline required pupils to rise early and practice six hours a day, and where attending opera performances and ensemble music-making, including on several pianos, was mandatory. At the school, 13-year-old Rachmaninoff was introduced to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In the summer of 1886 Zverev and his pupils, including Rachmaninoff, stayed at the Oleiz estate in Koreiz, Crimea, where Rachmaninoff composed his first nocturne. After four years a quarrel occurred between Rachmaninoff and Zverev, and Rachmaninoff left the boarding school while remaining in Moscow.
Rachmaninoff later spoke to Marietta Shaginyan about Zverev, saying: “He was a wonderful man.
