Cataloguing Rachmaninoff’s Career in Performance

Sergei Rachmaninoff is widely regarded as one of the great pianists of the twentieth century. While his professional career as a concert pianist dated principally from his time in the West, in pre-Soviet Russia he was recognised as a preeminent conductor. In a research project that has stretched over two decades, I have compiled data on Rachmaninoff’s performance career, comprising research in archives in Russia and North America, as well as published sources in Russian and European languages. The resultant ‘Rachmaninoff Performance Diary’ has been publicly available online since 2011. A missing link in the data has been the complete programmatic details of over 1080 solo recitals. In 2006, I discovered unrecognised research in this area in an archive of the Library of Congress, completed by Rachmaninoff’s sister-in-law, Sophia Satina. After years of correspondence with the Rachmaninoff Estate, I recently negotiated to add Satina’s material to the Performance Diary, thereby completing this long-running project. In this presentation, I will recount aspects of my research, outline the processes that have underpinned the organisation and presentation of data, and highlight elements of Rachmaninoff’s performing career that will soon be available to researchers in this area.

Scott Davie is known to audiences as a soloist and chamber musician. He has given concerts throughout Australia, in Europe, across the United States of America, Mexico, and in China. His performances and recordings have been broadcast on radio and television, and are available on ABC Classics and streaming platforms. He has collaborated in concerto performances with Vladimir Ashkenazy, and in stage productions with Graeme Murphy, the Australian Ballet and the Sydney Dance Company. In addition to performing, he lectures and writes on a broad range of topics.

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