Rachmaninoff

The biography of Sergei Rachmaninov by François Hudry , illustrated by Aude Samama and accompanied by 2 compact discs.

What is music? How to define it? The music is a calm moonlit night, a rustling of foliage in summer. The music is a distant chime at dusk!...

Sergei Rachmaninov 's music is certainly not that of an innovator and judgments are always surprisingly clear-cut when it comes to qualifying it; we love it with passion or we frankly hate it. It is anchored in a romantic tradition further exacerbated by the influence of Tchaikovsky and seems to remain deaf to the harmonic innovations of its time. However, Rachmaninoff 's captivating world exerts on the listener an astonishing power of suggestion and seduction. Always oscillating between a certain emphasis and a serious, even lugubrious tone, his music has a great capacity to describe very diverse states of mind which penetrate to the depths of our unconscious.