6 Romances, Op. 38

Composer: RACHMANINOV, Sergei
  • Rachmaninov wrote his 6 Romances (or Six Songs) for voice and piano in 1916. This set of songs represents the last work of its kind that Rachmaninov composed. After fleeing his native Russia in 1917 amid the Russian Revolution, he never composed songs again.
    • *”Romances” is the word that Russian composers used for art songs, similarly to “Lieder” for German composers or “chansons” for French ones.1
  • The titles of each song are:
    1. In My Garden at Night (text by Aleksandr Blok)
    2. To Her (text by Andrei Bely)
    3. Daisies (text by Igor Severyanin)
    4. The Rat-Catcher (text by Valery Bryusov)
    5. The Dream (text by Fyodor Sologub)
    6. A-oo (text by Konstantin Balmont)
      • All of the poets were Rachmaninov’s contemporaries.
  • Rachmaninov dedicated 6 Romances to Ukrainian soprano Nina Koshetz.2

Sources

  1. Gerard McBurney, Notes in accompanying booklet, Rachmaninov Songs performed by Julia Sitkovetsky and Roger Vignoles, Hyperion 68309, 2020, compact disc.
  2. “6 Romances, Op.38 (Rachmaninoff, Sergei),” IMSLP, accessed January 13, 2026, https://imslp.org/wiki/6_Romances,_Op.38_(Rachmaninoff,_Sergei).

Cut IDs

49046 17916 26349 26350