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
