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The moving story of Rachmaninoff's years in exile and the composition of his last great work, set against a cataclysmic backdrop of two world wars and personal tragedy.. In 1940, Sergei Rachmaninoff, living in exile in America, broke his creative silence and composed a swan song to his Russian homeland - his iconic "Symphonic Dances." What happened in those final haunted years and how did he come to write his farewell masterpiece? Rachmaninoff left Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1917 during the throes of the Russian Revolution. He was forty-four years old, at the peak of his powers as composer-conductor-performer, moving in elite Tsarist circles, as well as running the family estate, his refuge and solace. He had already written the music which, today, has made him one of the most popular composers of all time: the second and third Piano Concertos and two symphonies.