Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 04/15/2009, uploaded on 05/25/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

A Fragment from Musset, from 12 Romances, op. 21 no. 6     Sergei Rachmaninoff

On March 28, 1897, Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony was premiered at one of the Russian Symphony Concerts. Yet, what should have been a resounding success for the composer became instead a crushing failure. Two other pieces were premiered on the same program and the performance of Rachmaninoff’s symphony suffered accordingly. The orchestra’s conductor, Alexander Glazunov, is said to have made poor use of rehearsal time, and, according to some accounts of the concert, was also drunk. Critics panned the work itself, overlooking the many faults that arose from Glazunov’s leadership. Afterwards, Rachmaninoff fell into a deep bout of depression that lasted for the next three years, and during which time he composed very little music. With the help of psychologist Nikolai Dahl, Rachmaninoff eventually regained his confidence and set to work again, composing one of his most enduring compositions, the Second Piano Concerto.

Shortly after the success of the Second Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff composed in 1902 the majority of the songs that would become his 12 Romances, op. 21 (the only exception being the opening song “Fate,” composed in 1900 as the composer was beginning to emerge from his period of hopelessness). The sixth song of the set is based on a fragment taken from the poetry of the French author Alfred de Musset. It is a poem of loneliness from a love lost forever. The narrator is grief-stricken and unable to put his heart at rest. He imagines that he has heard a whisper call his name but realizes despairingly that it was only the clock marking the hour of his sleepless night. Rachmaninoff gives Musset’s text a dramatic treatment with an agitated vocal melody supported by restless arpeggios in the piano. The middle lines in which the poet imagines the whisper are given a particularly poignant expression by the quasi-recitative manner and hushed tones adopted by the voice. However, the sudden outburst of anguish that concludes the song captures the dismal and heart-wrenching loneliness of the poet.      Joseph DuBose

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.