comparable to Rachmaninoff's third concerto". Rachmaninoff played the concerto eight times during the tour. Despite the concerto's popularity, its critical reception has often remained poor. Following the 1917 October Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family escaped Russia, never to return, seeing the US as a haven for remedying his financial situation; they arrived there one day before Armistice Day, following their temporary stay in Scandinavia. Reginald De Koven praised a Rachmaninoff concerto performance under Walter Damrosch, writing that he rarely saw a New York audience "more moved, excited and wrought up". A 1927 Liverpool Post article called the concerto a "somewhat catchpenny work though it had plently of rather cheap glitter". His last role as a soloist for the concerto was on 18 June 1942 with Vladimir Bakaleinikov leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Hollywood Bowl. Reviewing the performance in Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, Richard D. Saunders opined that the work is of a "songful quality, imbued with haunting melodies all tinged with sombre pathos and expressed with the graceful refinement characteristic of the composer". Modern reception and legacy No other concerto by Rachmaninoff was as popular with audiences and pianists alike as his Second Concerto; the musicologist Glen Carruthers attributes this popularity with "memorable melodies [which] appear in each movement". Rachmaninoff's biographer Geoffrey Norris characterized the concerto as "notable for its conciseness and for its lyrical themes, which are just sufficiently contrasted to ensure that they are not spoilt either by overabundance or overexposure." Stephen Hough on an article with The Guardian posits that the composition is "his most popular, most often performed and, arguably, the most perfect structurally. It sounds as if it wrote itself, so naturally does the music flow". Another article by John Ezard and David Ward calls it one of the "most often performed concertos in the repertoire. Its emergence - in each year so far of the new century - as the British classical listening public's favourite tune indicates Rachmaninov's position as perhaps the most popular mainstream composer of the last 70 years." In 2022, the piece was voted number two in the Classic FM annual "Hall of Fame" poll, and has consistently ranked in the top three. Numerous films—such as William Dieterle's September Affair (1950), Charles Vidor's Rhapsody (1954), and Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955)—borrow themes from the concerto. David Lean's romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945) utilizes the music