Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor [Hardcover]

Barrie Martyn (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Scolar Pr (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0859678091
• ISBN-13: 978-0859678094
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,699,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Rachmaninoff - Composer Pianist Conductor, April 2, 2000

By 

Michael C. Anderson "history lover" (Toledo, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor (Hardcover)

The book is titled Rachmaninoff - Composer, Pianist, Conductor and is divided into sections which study each of these areas in the great composer's career. Rachmaninoff had many talents and at various times in his life pursued all of them. Composing was his first love, but the disasterous premier of his first symphony almost wrecked that career. After recovering from depression and regaining his skills, Rachmaninoff made a name for himself as a conductor. Then chased out of Russia by the revolution, he became a concert pianist to make a living and earned world-wide fame as an interpretor.

Barrrie Martyn's book is definitive in delving into these three lives particularly the section on the composer. All of Rachmaninoff's works are discussed in great detail with musical examples. The appendix contains his entire discography as well as all the works conducted and concerts given. No Rachmaninoff fan or music historian should be without this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Believe it or not, this book is worth every cent!, July 11, 2011

By 

Alexander Arsov - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor (Hardcover)

Barrie Martyn

Rachmaninoff:
Composer, Pianist, Conductor

Scolar Press, Hardback, 1990.
8vo. xvi, 584 pp. Introduction by the author [xiii-xvi]. Indexes [pp. 565-584]

First published, 1990.

Contents

List of plates
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part I: Rachmaninoff the Composer
1. Rachmaninoff and Russian Musical History
Chronological Summary of Rachmaninoff's Principal Compositions
2. Rachmaninoff's Composing Career and Musical Style
3. Student Years, 1886-1892
4. Free Artist, 1892-1897
5. Moscow, 1897-1906
6. Dresden, 1906-1909
7. Ivanovka, 1909-1917
8. New World, 1917-1943

Part II: Rachmaninoff the Pianist
9. Rachmaninoff's Career as a Pianist
10. Concert Statistics
11. Rachmaninoff's Art as a Pianist
12. Piano Repertoire
13. Rachmaninoff and the Gramophone
14. Discography
15. Rachmaninoff and the Reproducing Piano

Part III: Rachmaninoff the Conductor
16. Rachmaninoff's Career as a Conductor
17. Conducting Repertoire
18. Chronological List of Performances

Notes
Index of Rachmaninoff's Works
Index of Persons and Works Referred to in the Text

================================================='

There is an old Russian saying that if you are chasing two rabbits you may well end without catching either. No doubt this is true and the moral is quite clear: if you are trying to do two things well, you might just as well mess them both up. The fascinating thing about Rachmaninoff is that he ''chased three rabbits'' during his life, namely careers as composer, pianist and, at least sporadically, conductor. The author Barrie Martyn, modestly referred to on the dust jacket simply as a retired school teacher, has done an outstanding job to show that Rachmaninoff not only caught his three rabbits but even more: they were quite amazing rabbits indeed. In other words, Rachmaninoff achieved greatness in each of the three fields his career can be divided into. So far as I know such profundity of musical genius in one person has no analogue is history except for Franz Liszt.

Mr Martyn has chosen a fine thematic approach to his mammoth task. He has separated his book into three parts dedicated to each of the ''rabbits''. Their volume and order correspond to their importance: composer, pianist, conductor. Although this study is no biography of Rachmaninoff, Mr Martyn has included more than enough biographical details to put Rachmaninoff's achievements in the right historical context. Considering that Mr Martyn has, in fact, to tell Rachmaninoff's life in a nutshell no fewer than three times, it is notable how adroitly he manages to avoid repetitions. In general, he writes lucidly and very much to the point, without wasting any words and with surprising liveliness for a non-fiction writing. Occasionally, his style is slightly marred by excessive dealing with programs behind the music or by some highly questionable judgments, but, then again, in his introduction Mr Martyn makes no claims for objectivity, and I would rather take a controversial and opinionated writer who boldly defends his views than some mild and meek fellow who constantly shies away from taking any responsibility. Of course lay readers should be prepared for a good deal of music examples and incomprehensible analysis in the first part of the book, but it must be said that Mr Martyn always has many interesting things to say besides the purely musical dissection. Having mentioned that, musicians might find the tables comparing both versions of the First Piano Concerto or the various cuts made by Rachmaninoff and Horowitz in their recordings of the Third Piano Concerto quite useful.

The amount of research that must have gone into the preparation of the book is incredible. In addition to meticulous notes chapter by chapter, listing numerous sources ranging from biographies to periodicals to interviews, the book contains simply stupendous statistics about Rachmaninoff's discography, repertoire and careers as composer, pianist and conductor. Also, there are few extremely useful schemes and tables which make many historical, personal or pedagogical relationships quite clear at a glance. These include a chronological table of all Russian composers from Glinka to Stravinsky, with their life spans aligned for better appreciation of the mutual influence they might have had on each other; a family tree of Rachmaninoff's ancestors extending to his great-grandfather, thanks to which one can easily see why the pianist, conductor and Liszt's pupil Alexander Siloti, as well his own wife indeed, were Rachmaninoff's cousins; and a complicated table showing the teacher-pupil relationships about many of the great Russian piano virtuosos, including more modern names such as Horowitz, Gilels and Richter, but going back to the Bavarian-born Adolf Henselt and the wild Irishman John Field who made great careers as music teaches in Imperial Russia of the nineteenth century. The book is also illustrated with no fewer than 28 fine black-and-white photographs, most of them rather rare.

Since it has taken Mr Martyn some 600 pages and God (should he exist) knows how many years to write this book, I think we can do him justice only by discussing each of its three parts into some detail.

The first part of the book takes well over half of its volume, quite as expected of course since Rachmaninoff was first and foremost a great composer. Mr Martyn starts with two introductory chapters in which he puts Rachmaninoff into the right historical context of his times and summarises his whole career as a composer succinctly and insightfully. Then he goes on to discuss pretty much each composition Rachmaninoff ever penned, from his most famous piano concertos to the most obscure album leafs of his teen years. Yet again Mr Martyn's approach is very original, combining chronological and geographical separation in a most ingenious way. The major chapters are further separated into sections dedicated to each work of any importance. In addition to history of composition and performance as well as detailed musical analysis, these sections also contain a good deal of biographical information about Rachmaninoff's life, usually in the beginning and at the end of each section. On the whole, this arrangement makes it very easy to find the work that you happen to be listening just now and it tells almost as much about Rachmaninoff's life as the inexplicably celebrated biography by Bertensson and Leyda. Besides, Mr Martyn's style is far more succinct and perceptive than that of his colleagues; also very much unlike their promiscuous quoting of letters, he always quotes short excerpts which are very much to the point.

Another great difference with the Bertensson/Leyda biography is that Mr Martyn's insight into Rachmaninoff's composition output is infinitely greater. Examples are numerous and here I will give but one that impressed me enormously. Mr Martyn discusses the notoriously disastrous premiere (and its long-lasting effects) of Rachmaninoff's First Symphony in 1897 in great detail and from many points of view, but his most searing observation is the comparison with Igor Stravinsky's own symphony, composed in 1906-07 when he was 24 years old and rather less adventurous than what Rachmaninoff had achieved at 22 (he composed his First Symphony in 1895). Imagine how fabulously ironic that is! Igor Stravinsky, one of the greatest gurus of modern music, actually did compose in his youth a symphony (already an obsolete form in the 1900s!) less modern than one composed more than a decade earlier, and by Rachmaninoff himself at that, Rachmaninoff who was to remain one of the most conservative composers until the end of his life nearly five decades later. One cannot but chuckle. Such subtle touches in Mr Martyn's text are numerous and they really make one re-evaluate one's notions about Rachmaninoff as a composer, to say nothing of his discussing many works of Rachmaninoff that still await their proper appreciation from performers and listeners alike.

Another wonderful thing about Mr Martyn is that his attitude is wonderfully balanced indeed. He never raves about Rachmaninoff or lapses into silly hero worship, nor does he follow the shameful practice of many a presumptuous music critic to degrade Rachmaninoff's music because of its emotional appeal, conservative nature or great popularity with the public. It is significant that Mr Martyn often goes way beyond the mere musical analyses and ventures into a fascinating, if not always convincing, exploration of Rachmaninoff's very personality. One of the finest examples of this is, incidentally, one of the few cases where Mr Martyn allows himself a gentle criticism, namely Rachmaninoff's practice to sanction cuts in his own works which date from his early years but developed into quite an obsession later. Finally, when it comes to opinions of others about Rachmaninoff, Mr Martyn is deliciously malicious, the most extreme case being Medtner whose reaction in private to Rachmaninoff's success as a concert pianist is mercilessly exposed in all its brutal bluntness: he ''prostituted himself for the dollar''. Regrettably, Mr Martyn does not demolish Medtner's claim - which is perhaps too preposterous for that. Nevertheless, if I am allowed a dose of healthy cynicism, I would like to offer an explanation for Medtner's inexplicable vitriol considering his deep and mutual friendship with Rachmaninoff. I believe it is mere envy: poor Medtner could probably never get over the enormous success with the public, if not with the critics, that Rachmaninoff's music always had. Despite a lot of effort from great pianists such as... Read more ›