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Rachmaninoff: Life, Works, Recordings. By Max Harrison. London: Continuum, 2005. [vi, 422 p. ISBN 0-826-45344-6. $21.95.] Bibliography, discography, indexes, music examples.
While better known for his writings on jazz, Max Harrison has penned reviews of classical music and took at least nine years to craft this updated biography, which focuses on Rachmaninoff's works and recordings (Paul Baker, "Max Harrison," Jazz Notes 8, no. 3 [1996]: 12-13). Three other standard Rachmaninoff biographies in the English language complement one another in that they all contain different perspectives on the composer. Sergei Bertensson and Jay Leyda's Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music (New York: New York University Press, 1956) is an important publication in terms of Rachmaninoff's purely biographical details. Barrie Martyn's Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor (Aldershot, Hants, England: Scolar Press, 1990) comprehensively addresses Rachmaninoff's career as a composer, pianist, and conductor; it contains separate parts dedicated to the individual facets of his career, and features a very detailed discography of his recordings. The second edition of Geoffrey Norris's Rachmaninoff (New York: G. Schirmer, 1993) covers the composer's style and history behind his more significant compositions and cites many Russian sources (see Robert Cunningham, Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Bio-Bibliography [Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001], 88, 90-91). This current contribution by Harrison builds upon these sources, as well as others, with some new information, new approaches, and elaborates upon Rachmaninoff's recordings in the latter portion of the book.
Rather than organize the different facets of Rachmaninoff's career in separate chapters, as Martyn had done, Harrison addresses this biography in chronological order. He briefly outlines the composer's youth and schooling, and occasionally mentions other personal details while weaving in detailed descriptions of Rachmaninoff's career as a conductor, concertizing pianist, and composer. The main focus of this book is Rachmaninoff's compositions and Harrison approaches them in an encyclopedic manner. "Musical Examples" (pp. 356-81) follow at the end of the text along with a "Chronological List of Works" (pp. 382-84), "Classified List of Works" (pp. 385-89), a discography, bibliography, an index of Rachmaninoff's pieces, and another of names mentioned in the book.
Harrison provides only the basic aspects of Rachmaninoff's personal life. He intentionally decides not to focus...