Publisher Description

In 1943, at age seven, Michael Rabin picked up a violin for the very first time. Within six months, the child had an astonishing command of the instrument, outstripping the teaching ability of his father - first chair violin with the New York Philharmonic. By age fifteen, Rabin had recorded for Columbia Records and had had his Carnegie Hall debut, with Isaac Stern in attendance. Rabin's auspicious beginnings ushered in more than a decade of brilliant performing and recording success. He would tour the world many times over in the 1950s and 60s, even behind the Iron Curtain. But years of painstaking practice, incessant touring, truncated schooling, and overbearing parents had taken their toll on the fragile artist, leaving him beset with anxiety, stage phobia, and dependent on barbiturates. His great career declined, but in the late 1960s shows signs of a revival. Tragically, at just 35 he was dead.

Author Biography

Anthony Feinstein is a widely published author and professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Long Description

This first, authorized biography of one of the 20th century's greatest violinists chronicles the life of Michael Rabin from his young boyhood to his premature death at the age of 35. By his teen years in the 1950s, he had already joined the ranks of violin greats and he was being compared to Heifetz, Milstein, Stern, and Francescatti. Lovingly detailed, rich in music history and drama, this biography documents the many forces that shaped Rabin's extraordinary life and career, from his meteoric rise to his surprising decline. Feinstein charts Rabin's many artistic successes, as well as his struggles to make the transition from wunderkind to adult virtuoso, and sheds light on the true reasons for his fall from grace, debunking the many rumors that surrounded him during that time. Feinstein also clarifies the facts relating to Rabin's sudden death. What emerges is a unique profile of a prodiginous talent and a tragic life.

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