《Sergei Rachmaninoff》现代风格的拉赫马尼诺夫

One concise and straightforward biography with a balanced approach, focusing more on providing information than character development.

Apart from detailing Rachmaninoffs life experiences and analyzing his major works, the author attempts to deconstruct the oversimplified image of Rachmaninoff as a conservative Romantic composer and nostalgic Russian immigrant, proposing instead that he was a typical modernist.

On one hand, Rachmaninoff was deeply influenced by Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, and the Moscow Conservatorys emphasis on Western musical traditions (in contrast to the nationalist style of the St. Petersburg Five) and his early interest in Liszt and Wagner shaped his composition and performance. However, during his later years in Germany (1906-08), he took a clear stance against modernist musical experiments, which differentiated him from the paths taken by Scriabin and Stravinsky.

On the other hand, Rachmaninoffs music from the Silver age reflected the influence of symbolism in poetry and painting, constantly exploring the boundaries of tonal music while embracing it. Outside of music, he was passionate about emerging recording technologies, automatic pianos, cars, and functional architecture.

Despite all of these, Rachmaninoffs most famous works still combine lyricism and "Russianness," with his melancholic qualities resonating particularly well with modern audiences. After 1917, his works continued to echo among Russian immigrants worldwide through recordings and radio broadcasts, providing cultural belonging and memory coordinates for the community. In the Soviet Union, he remained equally popular. To this day, numerous people still seek solace in his music.

How can modernism explain these qualities? The author believes that Rachmaninoffs modernism precisely lies in his life and music being caught up in the vortex of an era where "all solid things are melting into air," constantly facing disintegration and renewal, contradictions and anxieties. Through his art based on tradition yet seeking innovation, he aimed to grasp the human conditions of beauty, truth, reality, and eternity. This may be the only way to peacefully coexist with modernism, the true essence of human survival under modernity.

23.5.18