Critical Lives – Sergei Rachmaninoff
Rebecca Mitchell
Reaktion Books 240pp (pb) £11.99
The conventional view of Rachmaninov as a dyed-in-the-wool purveyor of late-romantic musical nostalgia is strongly challenged in this enthrallingly written book.
Far from being completely out of step with the drastically changing cultural environment of the first half of the 20th century, Rachmaninov’s music, according to Rebecca Mitchell, was entirely modern, its dark harmonies and brooding nature echoing ‘a widespread sense of melancholy, uprootedness and “sickness” that seemed to define contemporary urban existence.’
This argument particularly holds water for the works Rachmaninov composed between 1910 and
1917 in which tonal boundaries are extended or deliberately obscured, demonstrating how far the composer had travelled from the post-tchaikovskian luxuriance of his Second Piano Concerto or Second Symphony.
Even after he chose to abandon Russia following the 1917 Revolution, Mitchell suggests that Rachmaninov responded in quite unexpected ways to his new existence in the United States, fervently embracing the cutting-edge technology of commercial recording, developing an unbridled passion for driving fast cars and demonstrating a keen awareness of some of the latest musical trends, a good example being the strong allusions to the music of Gershwin in his Fourth Piano Concerto. Erik Levi ★★★★★