Rachmaninoff's Complete Songs A Companion with Texts and Translations [Hardcover]

Sergei Rachmaninoffthe last great Russian romantic and arguably the finest pianist of the late 19th and early 20th centurieswrote 83 songs, which are performed and beloved throughout the world. Like German Lieder and French m?lodies, the songs were composed for one singer, accompanied by a piano. In this complete collection, Richard D. Sylvester provides English translations of the songs, along with accurate transliterations of the original texts and detailed commentary. Since Rachmaninoff viewed these romances primarily as performances and painstakingly annotated the scores, this volume will be especially valuable for students, scholars, and practitioners of voice and piano.

Richard D. Sylvester is Professor Emeritus of Russian at Colgate University and author of Tchaikovsky's Complete Songs: A Companion with Texts and Translations (IUP, 2004).

A treasure for the serious music reference library, Sylvesters work compiles art song data needed by students, teachers, researchers, and performers. . . . This is a scholarly effort welcome in university, conservatory, and large public library collections as well as the home shelves of music lovers.[T]he writer exposes the real-life practitioner of music, whether student, teacher, or seasoned performer, to an accessible source of rich, meticulously researched data so central for au fait artistic interpretation of classics, and often so hard to glean from routinely dry and difficult musicology texts. The robustness of research behind the book is in no way compromised by its accessibility, and is evident from an astounding bibliography section that spans ten pages and contains 289 references.Richard D. Sylvester's companion to Rachmaninoff's songs is a perfect guide for performers and Rachmaninoff enthusiasts.In his Companion, Richard D. Sylvester not only puts under careful factual scrutiny the entirety of Rachmaninoff's solo vocal output; he also invites his readers to consider the aesthetic and historicall