Back when I was an undergrad, I prepared a set of Rachmaninov art songs for my senior recital.
Now before you ask - no, I do not speak Russian, nor did I learn anything about the language in school. I just found a collection of the art songs, probably on a phonograph or a literal physical CD, and really wanted to do them.
At the risk of showing my age here, this was in the days **before the internet** (more or less), so there was no google translate or Duolingo to help me. Instead, I found a girl on campus who was a native Russian speaker to help me.
Thankfully, she was also a musician, so she "got" the particulars of translating a text into song. She was able to elaborate on important linguistic features, such as tongue position and specific vowel formations - for which I was very grateful. She was a very good teacher, and I took excellent notes.
I have continued to pull these songs - and many others from my undergraduate junior and senior recitals - out over the years to perform at various venues and concerts. I am grateful to college me for taking the time and care to unearth these excellent gems that I still love.
Fast forward to this year, where I found myself once again pulling out my now-falling-apart book of Rachmaninov art songs to look for rep for the Vibrato Bar.
One song in particular has a melody line played throughout the song that is representative of a discrete character. In the top treble line of the piano, the voice of the beloved from the homeland is heard. The singer’s voice fills the protagonist with grief and despair at the ache of loss of his homeland, which he can never return to.
I have a CD of a different set of Rachmaninov art songs arranged with string quartet (10/10 would recommend - they are gorgeous, and I’d love to do these arrangements sometime), but this particular song was not among them. And I’d always felt that it would make so much sense to give that musical voice it’s own instrument.
Enter my bestie, Ellen Allen . You may not know this, but Ellen trained seriously as a violinist before switching her primary instrument to voice in college. I asked her if she’d be willing to bring this "voice" to life, and she said yes!
So, please enjoy my re-arrangement of Rachmaninov’s Ne poy krasavitsa primne, performed at the Vibrato Bar, with no rehearsal, and with the incomparable Joe Stroup at the piano.
This performance is dedicated to the people of Ukraine, and all those who have been torn away from their homelands. Watch the performance here.
Translation:
Text by A. Pushkin
Oh do not sing to me, my beauty
The songs of sorrowful Georgia.
They remind me
Of another life
And a distant shore.
Alas! The remind me,
Your cruel songs,
Of the steppes, the night,
And under the moonlight, the features of a forgotten, poor girl.
That ghost, dear and fatal,
I forget when I see you.
But you sing -
And in front of me, I imagine her again.
Oh do not sing to me, my beauty
The songs of sorrowful Georgia.
They remind me
Of another life
And a distant shore.
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