Goodbye Russia

The moving story of Rachmaninoff's years in exile and the composition of his last great work, against a cataclysmic backdrop of two world wars and personal tragedy.

'Delightful . Reeling from the trauma of a life in upheaval, he wrote almost no music and quickly had to reinvent himself as a fêted virtuoso pianist, building up untold wealth and meeting the stars - from Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin to his Russian contemporaries and polar opposites, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

'Delightful . . . An entertaining and humanising portrait.' LITERARY REVIEW

'Elegant and compelling . . . Absorbing and multi-faceted.' GRAMOPHONE

Rachmaninoff left St Petersburg in 1917 in the throes of the Russian Revolution. The story of his years in exile in
America and Switzerland has only been told in passing. Reeling from the trauma of a life in upheaval, he wrote almost no music and quickly had to reinvent himself as a fêted virtuoso pianist, building up untold wealth and meeting the stars - from Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin to his Russian contemporaries and polar opposites, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Yet the melancholy of leaving his homeland never lifted. Using newly translated texts, Fiona Maddocks, casts light on this enigmatic figure, his friends, and the
world he encountered in exile.