text: Rachmaninoff's health rapidly declined in the last week of March 1943. He lost his appetite, had constant pain in his arms and sides, and found it increasingly difficult to breathe. On 26 March, the composer lost consciousness and he died two days later at his home in Beverly Hills, at age 69. A message from several Moscow composers with greetings had arrived too late for Rachmaninoff to read it. His funeral took place at the Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church on Micheltorena Street in Silver Lake. In his will, Rachmaninoff wished to be buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, where Scriabin, Taneyev, and Chekhov were buried, but his American citizenship made that impossible. Instead, he was interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
  After Rachmaninoff's death, poet Marietta Shaginyan published fifteen letters they exchanged from their first contact in February 1912 and their final meeting in July 1917. The nature of their relationship bordered on romantic, but was primarily intellectual and emotional. Shaginyan and the poetry she shared with Rachmaninoff have been cited as the inspiration for his Six Songs, Op. 38.
  Music
  Influences
  A major influence on Rachmaninoff as a composer was Tchaikovsky. This influence can be seen throughout Rachmaninoff's early compositions, such as in his Youth Symphony, which is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's late symphonies, sections of his symphonic poem Prince Rostislav, which emulates The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet, and his youthful Three Nocturnes, the third of which contains a chordal section very similar to the opening of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. His first opera, Aleko shows the influence of Tchaikovsky in both its harmonies, and in its allusions and references to Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky was also particularly influential on Rachmaninoff's melodic writing, though musicologist Stephen Walsh describes Rachmaninoff's melodies as lacking the range or length of Tchaikovsky's.