excerpt from 'Sergey Prokofiev diaries: 8 [24] December 1918' pp. 369 (180 words)
excerpt from 'Sergey Prokofiev diaries: 8 [24] December 1918' pp. 369 (180 words)
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I did not compose today, as I had business matters to attend to this morning and in the afternoon went to Rachmaninoff's concert. Carnegie Hall was packed to the rafters and many people were turned away, unable to get tickets. His programme . . . No, Rachmaninoff had sold his soul to the devil for American dollars! Chopin Waltzes, Liszt Rhapsodies, Mozart Variations, his own Polka - dreadful! He should instead have devoted at least three-quarters of the programme to his own compositions. Nevertheless, he achieved a success and a notable quantity of dollars. I am glad that our beloved compatriot has been successful, and glad also that a man the Bolsheviks ruined is regaining in America what he has lost, but I regret the waste of his talents on such a 'public' programme. Probably, at the root of it lies less a practical calculation than a profound contempt for Americans. In Russia he would never have done such a thing. He played well, but in an aggressive, Rachmaninovian way that subjectively I do not like although objectively I know it is estimable. |
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