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I think a little elaboration on his personal life (siblings, marriage, offspring) would be appropriate. I don't have the necessary information, however. Maybe someone else? As far as I know, he had two daughters. See for instance the tv-documentary in the external links on the Villa Senar page. I would also like a description of his personal appearance, his personality. In the introduction to the documentary on Swiss television (SRF), the presenter said that he was over 200 cm (6ft6) tall. Is that true? In the film, one of the interviewees says that you only need to look at his pictures to understand that there was nothing artificial or mundane about him, that he was an aristocrat at heart and that he was refinement all over. And that he was a family man. I would like to know more, with sources. (I don't have them.) And would it be appropriate to mention something about his wealth? When he moved to the US, he bought an apartment on the WestSide of Manhattan with a view on the Hudson River. Must have cost something. And in the film it is mentioned that he bought a couple of acres in Switzerland near Lucerne in 1930 to have his private villa build there, with a park around it. That must also have cost quite a few $. When he moved to California in 1942, he bought a house in Beverly Hills. Same story. I read somewhere that his grandson Alexandre Rachmaninoff, who was the last owner of the Villa Senar, was exceptionally rich. Wasn't he featured in Variety or Vanity Fair or Harper's Bazaar during his lifetime? Hansung02 (talk) 18:23, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
I checked out where he lived in Moscow, from his statue there. Just around the corner from the Bolshoi theatre, and, in the present day, a lot of embassies and four-star hotels.(GoogleMaps) That looks like the expensive part of town.Hansung02 (talk) 21:42, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
in his lifetime Rachmaninoff was primarily known as a formidable pianist, and second as a composer–this doesn't really mean anything for our article on him. Again, we follow secondary sources, not primary. Aza24 (talk) 19:28, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
On reading this article I am surprised to find several opinions concerning Rachmaninoff's music, all of which reference a single book by someone named Max Harrison: [Rachmaninoff: Life, Works, Recordings (2006)]. According to Amazon, Harrison has written one other book on a classical composer [The Lieder of Brahms (1972)], and a large number of books on jazz. Looking at Amazon reader reviews of his Rachmaninoff book, my impression of the most useful of these, both extensive and thorough, are the two 2-star reviews. I'm not at all sure that Mr Harrison's personal opinions, alone, are appropriate for this WP article, certainly without a wider consensus. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
at least nine years to craft this updated biographyand we learn that
The main focus of this book is Rachmaninoff's compositions and Harrison approaches them in an encyclopedic manner. Are you aware of any reviews in actual reliable sources that raise substantive criticisms of the reliability of this book? Cullen328 (talk) 05:04, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
The article claims that "his melodies did not have the range or length of Tchaikovsky's", this seems to be objectively false. The main theme of the first movement of the 2nd concerto is very long, and the 3rd concerto counterpart takes 17 bars to reach the highest note of the melody line. This is not a fanboy comment, I don't like either of the composers very much, but this is just plainly wrong. Not to mention that Tchaikovsky wrote plenty of short melodies, the Romeo and Juliet theme is like five notes long. 86.63.168.150 (talk) 22:31, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
As a melodist, Rachmaninoff was much influenced by Tchaikovsky. But he was greatly Tchaikovsky's inferior in the range and variety of his tunes; and in learning from the older composer he seems to have been over-impressed by the cantabile mechanism which underlies Tchaikovsky's best lyrical inspiration -the step-wise motion and sensuous orchestration-while being unable to follow its immense intervallic span and extensive growth in time. Typically, Rachmaninoff's melodic periods are short, and there is a tendency to revolve round pivotal notes in descending sequence, whereas the typical Tchaikovsky progression is an ascending one. The long aspiring tunes of the Fifth Symphony, Francesca da Rimini, Hamlet and the Pathitique have few if any parallels in Rachmaninoff.– Michael Aurel (talk) 23:32, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)"Tchaikovsky was also particularly influential on Rachmaninoff's melodic writing, though musicologist Stephen Walsh describes Rachmaninoff's melodies as lacking the range or length of Tchaikovsky's.