BBC Music Magazine

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 ★★★★★

 ?? ?? No stick-in-the-mud: Rachmanino­v was entirely modern in his outlook
No stick-in-the-mud: Rachmanino­v was entirely modern in his outlook
 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom