The Rock, on. 7 (Russian: Утёс) is a fantasy for orchestra written by Sergei Rachmaninov in the summer of 1893.
Rachmaninoff chose as a caption a poem of poet from Russian poet Michail Lermontov:
The golden cloud drives through the night Over the chest of a giant rock
Rachmaninov would have said that he would have learned his inspiration for this work mainly from a story by Anton Tsjechov, in which a young girl meets an older man during an overnight stay at an inn. They tell each other stories and discover love, after which their paths will separate again next morning.
Rachmaninov had a lot of respect for the composer Tchaikovsky, and in a meeting between those two at the former teacher of Rachmaninov Sergej Tanejev, Tsikovsky promised to incorporate the Rock into the program of his forthcoming tour. This promise was never redeemed, since Tsikovsky died later that year. The composition was assigned to Nikolaj Rimski-Korsakov.
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