On the whole, biographies of Rachmaninov do not fall into the ‘gripping page-turner’ category. They list his successes and his setbacks, and give all the essential nodal points of his life: birth (1873), education (Moscow), marriage (1902), children (2), career (composer/pianist/conductor), exile in America (1917), and death (1943). Apart from his battles with a lack of self-confidence and his decision to flee Russia after the revolution, there are few further dramas, and there don’t tend to be many attempts to tease out his personality. This is partly because Rachmaninov was an obsessively private person. Apart from letters in which he described his bouts of self-doubt, he rarely revealed his innermost thoughts to anyone. When he performed, he was famous for showing no emotion on his face whatsoever. ‘Inscrutable’ and ‘like granite’ are phrases often applied to his appearances on the concert platform.
That’s why the following passage, from Max Harrison’s 2005 biography Rachmaninov: Life, Works, Recordings explodes rather like a hand grenade. (It’s on page 131, if you’re interested.) It deals with the composer’s attempts in 1906 to write an opera based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Monna Vanna, and his dealings with two separate men helping him with the libretto.
Perhaps the opera was the one about which he was most determined, his correspondence with Morozof and Slonof certainly suggesting this, although he was devious as usual, saying some things to one, and others to the other.
Devious as usual? Rachmaninov, repeatedly devious?
Cool exterior
I have seen Rachmaninov called many things – generous, private, caustic, disciplined – but never But I don’t doubt the appellation. It just
