Rachmaninoff's Complete Songs: A Companion with Texts and Translations (Hardback)

A treasure for the serious music reference library, Sylvester's 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.

Richard D. Sylvester's companion to Rachmaninoff's songs is a perfect guide for performers and Rachmaninoff enthusiasts.

The author . . . makes Russian songs accessible to those without previous language training. Multiple indexes make this a fine reference source for texts.

Sylvester . . . paints a rich, detailed, and variegated picture of Rachmaninoff's output as a song composer, the range and variety of his literary reading, and his many creative interactions with singers.

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 historical significance of Rachmaninoff's 26-year-long engagement with lyric poetry. This multi-functional volume offers much more than its meek title may suggest.

[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.

All lovers of Russian music owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor Sylvester, whose latest book may be recommended without qualification.