Michael Rabin: America's Virtuoso Violinist (Amadeus)
by Anthony Feinstein

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Book Reviews of Michael Rabin: America's Virtuoso Violinist (Amadeus)

Book Review: Feinstein is no virtuoso biographer!
Summary: 1 Stars

This book is billed as "the first, authorized biography." Well, there is generally only one "authorized biography" for any given individual, so this statement is a bit confusing. At least it is clear that this is indeed the first biography of Michael Rabin to appear in book form.

In the interests of "full disclosure," let me say that I knew Michael Rabin well during the period 1968-1972. Feinstein's Michael, however, is certainly not the Michael I knew!

While I wouldn't be likely to dispute Feinstein's statement of how many pages the violinist's log of his air miles contains, other aspects of the volume do not inspire confidence in the author's command of his facts. Instead, they would make a critical reader doubt the author's research abilities. There's no discography, no log of performances, no bibliography. For a first biography, and one that has some of the scholarly apparatus too, these are glaring omissions.

Even though there are copious footnotes, the inaccuracies elsewhere in the volume make a reader wonder whether all of them are accurate. A check of some of these references reveals that they are often not in proper or consistent format and, in at least one case that I have already been able to identify simply by emailing a couple of official archives, Feinstein has cited a publication that never existed.

The book reads more like a first draft than a final version. Without cheating and checking the photos, it's hard to imagine what most of the players look or sound like. Sometimes the text and the photos seem to disagree. One person interviewed describes Michael, during the last six months of his life, as being "very hairy" (see page 207), yet among the photos bound into the volume between pages 88 and 89, there's a photo of an 18-year-old Michael, already with a receding hairline, and his father (the latter shown without his shirt). Bertine, Michael's sister, stands in the middle, between them. Both men are in shorts. Michael is also wearing a short-sleeved tee-shirt and the photo proves that Michael's arms and legs weren't hairy then. His father's arms, legs and torso weren't especially hairy either. Since men tend to inherit patterns of hair growth from the male parent, you can draw your own conclusions. Either the interviewee was mis-remembering the facts or some medical condition or drug reaction caused the change. In the latter case Feinstein should have explained why it happened, as long as he's taking the trouble to report it.

There's no real sense of place given by the author's text. The violinist's own letters convey far more atmosphere than Feinstein does. The writing style in this volume is decidedly pedestrian. Feinstein goes out of his way to state the obvious. In discussing the prodigy's work as a child and adolescent, for example, he writes on page 68: "The role models Michael were [sic.] encouraged to emulate were all adults who had stellar careers in music." As you can see, the editing isn't wonderful either! Anyone notice that, in this sentence, the subject is singular ("Michael") while the verb is plural ("were")? In any case, why would Michael (or any other aspiring performer, for that matter) emulate anyone other than major mature artists?

Feinstein's volume seems less a true biography than "Michael Rabin as seen through the eyes of four people"--Bertine, Adrienne Rosenbaum (his first love interest), Lewis Kaplan and June LeBell. His longtime accompanist, Mitchell Andrews, has only a few paltry mentions, although he worked with the violinist for a decade, and the same is true of Schuyler Chapin, who worked with Michael for about five years at Columbia Artists Management. Outside of critical reviews of Michael's performances and items quoted selectively to reflect the author's various biases, the perspectives of other individuals who knew the violinist well are rare indeed in these pages.

There are seeming contradictions in the text itself, also. For example, it's extremely difficult for a reader to reconcile the fact that, on page 213, June LeBell, when describing Michael's death, states, "It was as if he had come running out of the kitchen and had slipped..." Yet, on p. 218, Feinstein states, "...the barbiturates Michael took made him drowsy. He lay down to rest. On rising quickly, perhaps to answer the telephone, he slipped..." How many of us who are relatively sane habitually lie down on the kitchen floor to take a nap? Do these stories sound consistent to you? For a book that aims to clarify what happened to this violinist who died young, illogic like this doesn't go very far toward achieving that goal. Might this be another editorial gaffe? How could Feinstein himself not have noticed this inconsistency? Perhaps a description of the layout of the violinist's apartment might have answered this question or perhaps it wouldn't. But Feinstein makes no attempt whatever to deal with this problem and so the reader will never know!

Feinstein quotes one musician's memoirs about Michael's drug use in 1970 because the passage supports his theory. However, he doesn't mention another passage from the same musician's memoirs that describes the violinist's death, from the point of view of someone who claimed to have been present. Undoubtedly this omission happened because it totally contradicts quotes Feinstein uses from Lewis Kaplan and June LeBell as well as his own interpretation of the event. He doesn't reproduce and then debunk this passage; he simply ignores it. Nor does Feinstein examine at all critically the memoir-writer's initial statement, the one he did choose to quote. Yet, when questioned by others, another participant said to have taken part in that little scenario denies that it happened. If the accuracy of one passage has been called into question, might not the other one also be suspect?

Inaccuracies and evidence of lack of care are many and include both misuse of English and mistranslations. For instance, on page 1, Feinstein refers to a career being "hoisted upon him [Michael]." Although at times the violinist considered his career a heavy burden, clearly the word used is incorrect and Feinstein should have said "foisted" rather than "hoisted." The book is filled with such howlers. As an example of mistranslation, I can offer the following: the word "haimish" doesn't mean "homely," as Feinstein translates it on page 200. "Homely" is an English word that is generally used as a synonym for "unattractive" or "ugly" and is almost always applied only to women. The quote here, however, is from a thank-you note in which the violinist was lauding the hospitality he had received. The correct translation, therefore, is "home-like" or "possessing a friendly and warm atmosphere." Or words to that effect. In addition, it's just plain irritating to see "[sic.]" every time the word "Prokofieff" appears in one of the violnist's letters, as if he'd misspelled the composer's name. (There is still a "Prokofieff Foundation," after all!) That's not a misspelling, it's just a variant transliteration, of the Russian composer's name. The period Feinstein is writing about is one when two competing transliterations existed and one has become more popular in recent years than the other. But that doesn't make one spelling "correct" and the other "incorrect."

Feinstein uses the testimony of a neighbor--a busy ballet dancer--to "prove" that Michael had no girlfriends during the period ca. 1960-68. This dancer only lived near him for a couple of years toward the end of that time. How would she know? Was she watching his door 24/7? Was she with him on tour? Was she with him when he wasn't home? No.

Another "proof" Feinstein cites that Michael didn't have any girlfriends during that period is that he didn't introduce any either to Bertine or to Lewis Kaplan. Michael was in his twenties and older at that point. He was living in his own apartment from 1963 on. Did he have to introduce a woman to his sister or to an old friend of his with whom he was no longer quite as close as formerly (and who was no longer his personal confidant)in order to have permission to date her? Please, Mr. Feinstein, let's get real here! I can think of at least three women, known to have spent varying amounts of time with the violnist during those years, whom this book has totally ignored. Their names are not even mentioned. Why? Because they and/or their relationships with Michael, perhaps, don't fit his theories!

Other misapprehensions under which Feinstein labors include the fact that the private school Michael attended for about two years was located at 132 West 60th Street. It wasn't. A quick trip to the Professional Children's School website (sorry but you'll have to look this up yourselves because Amazon doesn't permit urls in book reviews!) will confirm this fact. When Michael was a student there (prior to 1956), it was located in a commercial building at 61st Street and Broadway. On page 22, Feinstein identifies the young Michael's grade of B+ in science as being "below average." Well, that simply isn't so. The "B+" means that Michael's work in that class was decidedly above average. Michael never appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show although Feinstein says he did. Feinstein refers to the "Bronx School of Science" when he means the "Bronx High School of Science." Then, in discussing 1971, he states, "...Arthur Judson had long departed Columbia Artists." Well, I suppose that's at least partially correct. Arthur Judson departed this life (not just Columbia Artists Management) in 1963.

Rather than go on with this already-long recital of errors, half-truths and apparent sculpting of the facts to fit the author's theories (or, perhaps, those of the violinist's family and of whoever else had to pass on the manuscript since this is an "authorized biography"), I'll stop here and say that, because such sloppiness abounds, the accuracy of this volume is not to be trusted. Save your money! This jumble of misinformation is no bargain. Those interested in violins and violinists, classical music in general, psychology, child prodigies and/or biographies that are interesting to read should await a more perceptive, balanced, responsible and well-realized book before plunking down their hard-earned money.

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