Sergei Rachmaninoff
Rebecca MitchellA concise yet comprehensive survey of one of classical music’s most popular composers.
Unquestionably one of the most popular composers of classical music, Sergei Rachmaninoff has not always been so admired by critics. Detractors have long perceived Rachmaninoff as part of an outdated Romantic tradition from a bygone Russian world, aloof from the modernist experimentation of more innovative contemporaries such as Igor Stravinsky.
In this new assessment Rebecca Mitchell re-situates Rachmaninoff in the context of his time, bringing together the composer and his music within the remarkably dynamic era in which he lived and worked. Both in Russia and later in America, Rachmaninoff and his music were profoundly modern expressions of life in tune with an uncertain world.
This concise yet comprehensive biography will interest general readers as well as those more familiar with this giant of Russian classical music.
A concise yet comprehensive survey of one of classical music’s most popular composers.
Unquestionably one of the most popular composers of classical music, Sergei Rachmaninoff has not always been so admired by critics. Detractors have long perceived Rachmaninoff as part of an outdated Romantic tradition from a bygone Russian world, aloof from the modernist experimentation of more innovative contemporaries such as Igor Stravinsky.
In this new assessment Rebecca Mitchell re-situates Rachmaninoff in the context of his time, bringing together the composer and his music within the remarkably dynamic era in which he lived and worked. Both in Russia and later in America, Rachmaninoff and his music were profoundly modern expressions of life in tune with an uncertain world.
This concise yet comprehensive biography will interest general readers as well as those more familiar with this giant of Russian classical music.
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An admirably concise new biography.
'Boston Globe
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A new critical and scholarly study of Rachmaninoff has been long overdue, and Rebecca Mitchell's compact but well-researched book is an important step forwards. Drawing on a wealth of sources, she follows Rachmaninov's journey from his childhood in a broken family home to his death in his Beverly Hills house a few days before his 70th birthday. Along the way, she offers much-needed nuances to some of the hoariest myths associated with the composer.
'Gramophone
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Part of a series of fast-paced, illustrated biographies, Sergei Rachmaninoff focuses as much on Rakhmaninov’s posthumous reputation as on his life and music . . . As Mitchell declares at the end of her book, ‘By resituating Rakhmaninov’s career within a multilayered experience of uprootedness (rather than timelessly drifting outside of it), his stature as a genuinely modern figure becomes clear’.
'Slavonic and East European Review
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This is a vivid and original portrait of one of the 20th century’s most beloved composers. Rachmaninoff’s music ranks among the most popular of any classical composer, yet it has been snubbed by composers and musicologists alike as somehow out of step with its time. This biography should kick-start the long overdue process of a reassessment and rediscovery of Rachmaninoff’s career.
'Pauline Fairclough, Professor of Music, University of Bristol, and author of 'Dmitry Shostakovich' (2019)
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"Modern, but not modernist" is how Rebecca Mitchell defines Sergei Rachmaninoff. Composer, conductor, virtuosic performer and celebrity, he was also a market-savvy manager of his own resources, as keen on cutting-edge recording technology as he was on fast cars. Nostalgic? Only when it suited him. To be modern, Mitchell cogently argues, is to take a stand in a world where tradition is forever dissolving.
'Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
Rebecca Mitchell is Associate Professor of History at Middlebury College, Vermont, and author of Nietzsche’s Orphans: Music, Metaphysics and the Twilight of the Russian Empire (2015).