Rachmaninoff's Complete Songs: A Companion with Texts and Translations. By Richard D. Sylvester

Abstract

At first glance, the cover illustration of Richard D. Sylvester’s Rachmaninoff’s Complete Songs: A Companion with Texts and Translations suggests an image of the composer as an isolated figure; staring lugubriously at the camera, Rachmaninoff appears here as the virtuoso solo pianist, a view perpetuated by a lovely charcoal drawing by Leonid Pasternak reproduced inside. Taken together, these images might give the impression that Rachmaninoff was ill fitted to be a song composer, and that his songs are fundamentally solo piano pieces with texted melodies on top. Indeed, Rachmaninoff arranged two of his own songs—Lilacs, Op. 21 No. 5, and Daisies, Op. 38 No. 3—for solo piano, and as Sylvester’s detailed annotations demonstrate, this practice has been followed by instrumentalists of all stripes ever since. At least on the cover of Sylvester’s previous book—Tchaikovsky’s Complete Songs: A Companion with Texts and Translations (Indiana University Press, 2004)—its subject appeared with two singers—Nikolay and Vera Figner, who created the lead roles in his final two operas, Queen of Spades and Iolanta. Here, however, Rachmaninoff has no companions. Especially in the West, where the language barrier has prevented full recognition of the Russian song tradition, the composer’s reputation rests primarily on his piano and orchestral works, and on his own fame as a performer.