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Progressive Tendencies in Rachmaninoff's Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Joseph Yasser
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Extract

Such was, in substance, one of the most typical replies of Rachmaninoff to his friends, acquaintances, casual visitors and press interviewers, who used to question him year after year about his attitude toward modern music. Naturally, the phraseology and the “tone” of his reply varied in each instance, but its essence remained, under all circumstances, the same.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 22: Rachmaninoff Number , Winter 1952 , pp. 11 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1952

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References

1 This is a revised and amplified version of the article published in Musicology, vol. 2, No. 1, New York, 1948 Google Scholar

2 All the quotations in the last two paragraphs are taken either from Tschaikowsky's biography written by his brother Modeste (Moscow, 1900–1902, vol. I, p. 181; vol. II, pp. 74, 228, 660), or from Taneiev's biography by L. Sabaneyev (Paris, 1930, pp. 125, 173), both works in Russian. We may note, incidentally, that Tschaikowsky's expression “the cleverest harmonic tricks,” quoted above, was inaccurately translated as “complicated harmonic combinations” by Newmarch, Rosa (The Life and Letters of P. I. Tschaikowsiy by Modeste Tschaikowsky, London, 1906, p. 462).Google Scholar

3 Pamyati Rachmaninova, a collective volume published in memory of Rachmaninoff (in Russian) by Satin, S. A., New York, 1946, p. 24 Google Scholar.

4 Ippolitov-Ivanov, M. M., Fifty Years of Russian Music in my Recollections (in Russian), Moscow, 1934, p. 82 Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Solovtsov, A., S. V. Rachmaninoff, Moscow, 1947, pp. 19–20 Google Scholar.

6 The Diapason (Chicago), 03, 1947, p. 24 Google ScholarPubMed.

7 Montagu-Nathan, M., Contemporary Russian Composers (New York, 1917, p. 169)Google Scholar.

8 Sabaneyev, Leonid, Modern Russian Composers, (International Publishers, New York, 1927, p. 105)Google Scholar. In the opinion of Ippolitov-Ivanov, M. M. (op. cit., p. 82)Google Scholar, Rachmaninoff's fantasy The Rock was written “under the indubitable influence of Rimsky-Korsakov.”

9 Rachmaninoff's Recollections told to Oskar von Riesemann (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1934, p. 21 5)Google Scholar.

10 Cf. the writer's letter to the music editor of the New York Times published on December 21, 1947, in connection with this subject.

11 Modern Russian Composers, p. 104.

12 The text of Cui's criticism is quoted here according to Solovtsov, A. (op. cit., p. 20)Google Scholar who had access to the original source. It is somewhat distorted in Rachmaninoff's Recollections (p. 99).

13 This took place in Philadelphia on March 20th, and in New York on March 30th, 1948, both times under the direction of Eugene Ormandy.

14 Russkaya Muzika'naya Gazeta (St. Petersburg, 02 7th, 1910, p. 164)Google Scholar; the-same critic also relates that Rachmaninoff planned to revise his first symphony and perhaps even to publish it eventually. It will be opportune to add here that, judging from a private letter of the composer dated May 6th, 1897, and discovered recently in Russia, he was inclined, at that time, to explain the failure of his symphony primarily on the ground of its poor presentation. (Cf. Yasser, Joseph, Symphony Post-Mortem, The New York Times, 03 28th, 1948)Google Scholar.

15 Solovtsov, A., op. cit., p. 75 Google Scholar.

16 Zhdanov, V. A. (ed.), Correspondence of Tschaikowsky and Taneiev, Moscow, 1951, p. 482 Google Scholar.

17 Modern Russian Composers, p. 112; also Istoria Russkoy Muziki, by the same author (Moscow, 1924, p. 79)Google Scholar.

18 Article “Rachmaninoff” in Entsiklopedicheski Slovar “Granat,” vol. 36 Part 1, Moscow, 1932, p. 165 Google Scholar; the reference is evidently to the set of fourteen songs, op. 34, published at the end of 1912.

19 Ibid., p. 164; also Modern Russian Composers, p. 112.

20 Retch, Russian Daily, St. Petersburg, 1913, No. 324; reprinted in V. G. Karatygin, Life Work, etc., Leningrad, 1927, p. 205.

21 Rachmaninoff's Recollections, pp. 224, 225;, 233, and 240.

22 Cf. Pamyati Rachmaninova, pp. 147–148.

23 K. A. Kusnetsov, Tvorcheskqya zhizn' S. V. Rachmaninova (Rachmaninoff's Creative Life) in Sovietskaya Muzika, Moscow, 1945, Vol. IV, pp. 31, 40, 44, 45, 51Google Scholar.

24 D. Zhitomirsky, Fortepiannoye Tvorchestvo Rachmaninova (Rachmaninoff's Piano Works) in Sovietskava Muzika, Moscow, 1945, vol. IV, pp. 80, 82, 96–99Google Scholar.

25 Nestyev, Israel V., Sergei Prokofieff, New York, 1946, p. 19 Google Scholar.

26 Slonimsky, Nicholas, Sergei Prokofieff, in Thompson's, O. International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, New York, 1946, p. 2284 Google Scholar.

27 Solovtsov, A., op. cit., p. 58 Google Scholar.

28 Asafiev, B. V., Russkaya Muzika, Leningrad, 1930, pp. 86, 202–203Google Scholar.