Rachmaninoff and his world / edited by Philip Ross Bullock.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bullock, Philip Ross, editor.

Series:

Bard Music Festival

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rachmaninoff, Sergei, 1873-1943.

Rachmaninoff, Sergei.

Composers--Russia--Biography.

Composers.

Musicians.

Russia.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (383 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Illinois : University of Chicago Press, [2022]

Summary:

A biography of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, published in collaboration with the Bard Music Festival. One of the most popular classical composers of all time, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) has often been dismissed by critics as a conservative, nostalgic holdover of the nineteenth century and a composer fundamentally hostile to musical modernism. The original essays collected here show how he was more responsive to aspects of contemporary musical life than is often thought, and how his deeply felt sense of Russianness coexisted with an appreciation of American and European culture. In particular, the essays document his involvement with intellectual and artistic circles in prerevolutionary Moscow and how the form of modernity they promoted shaped his early output. This volume represents one of the first serious explorations of Rachmaninoff’s successful career as a composer, pianist, and conductor, first in late Imperial Russia, and then after emigration in both the United States and interwar Europe. Shedding light on some unfamiliar works, especially his three operas and his many songs, the book also includes a substantial number of new documents illustrating Rachmaninoff’s celebrity status in America.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

Permissions and Credits

Acknowledgments

Note on Transliteration and Dating

Moscow and Modernity

Reading the Popular Pessimist: Thought, Feeling, and Dance in Rachmaninoff ’s Symphonic Narrative

Sergei Rachmaninoff and Moscow Musical Life

Love Triumphant: Rachmaninoff ’s Eros, the Silver Age, and the Middlebrow

Rachmaninoff and the “Vocalise”: Word and Music in the Russian Silver Age

Three Operas

Tchaikovsky’s Echoes, Chaliapin’s Sobs: Aleko, Rachmaninoff, and the Contemporary

Rachmaninoff ’s Miserly Knight (On Money, Honor, and the Means to Create)

Burning for You: Rachmaninoff ’s Francesca da Rimini

New Worlds

Rachmaninoff and the Celebrity Interview: A Selection of Documents from the American Press

The Eighteenth Variation

“One of the Outstanding Musical Events of All Time”: The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 1939 Rachmaninoff Cycle

“The Case of Rachmaninoff ”: The Music of a White Emigré in the USSR

Aesthetic Ambition and Popular Taste: The Divergent Paths of Paderewski, Busoni, and Rachmaninoff

Index

Notes on the Contributors

Volumes Published In Conjunction With The Bard Music Festival

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Bullock, Philip Ross. Rachmaninoff and His World.

ISBN:

9780226823744

0226823741

OCLC:

1319224517