Description
Book SynopsisSergei Rachmaninoff experienced life-changing upheavals and competing inflection points of musical taste, traversing countries and continents as he pursued the triply-brilliant career of composer-conductor-virtuoso pianist. Born in tsarist Russia and raised as a nobleman in a well-educated musical family, Rachmaninoff led a bold lifestyle as a cutting-edge composer, admirer of the latest trends in art, and even aficionado of new developments in farm equipment for his beloved estate of Ivanovka. Wherever his concertizing took him, to glittering capitals all over the world, Rachmaninoff became a nexus for prominent musicians, writers, actors, and other personalities defining this era.
Valeria Z. Nollan’s biography of perhaps the finest pianist of the twentieth century plunges readers into Rachmaninoff’s complex inner world. Sergei Rachmaninoff: Cross Rhythms of the Soul is the first biography of Rachmaninoff in English that presents him in the fullness of his Russian identity. As someone whose own life in Russian emigration ran in parallel ways to Rachmaninoff’s own—and whose meetings with the composer’s grandson in Switzerland informed her work—Nollan brings important cultural insights into her observations of the activities of this generation of creative artists. She also traces the intricacies of Rachmaninoff’s relations with the women closest to him—whose imprints are palpable in his compositions—and introduces a mystery woman whose existence challenges our established narrative of his life.
Table of ContentsContents
Chapter 1. Rachmaninoff’s Origins
Chapter 2. Early Education
Chapter 3. Birth of a Composer-Pianist
Chapter 4. Birth of a Conductor
Chapter 5. The Muses
Chapter 6. Mystery of an Immortal Beloved
Chapter 7. Marriage to Natalia Satina
Chapter 8. Rachmaninoff’s Aesthetics
Chapter 9. Rachmaninoff’s Religiosity
Chapter 10. Transitions
Chapter 11. The Legendary Virtuoso Pianist
Chapter 12. Rachmaninoff as Humanitarian
Chapter 13. Paradise Regained: The Villa Senar
Chapter 14. The Last Bow: Rachmaninoff and America
Afterword: Rachmaninoff’s Legacy in the Twenty-First Century
Appendix I: Twists and Turns of a Mystery
Appendix II: List of Works
