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American Record Guide

Alfonso Soldano (b. 1986) plays here his own piano solo arrangements of the Rachmaninoff songs and transcriptions of Debussy’s orchestral works. Most of the pieces here exist in one or more other arrangements for piano solo, duet, or 2 pianos. The shadow of Liszt looms large over both the song arrangements and orchestral transcriptions, all of which require a true virtuosic technique. The songs, much like Liszt, start out as almost exact transcriptions of the combined voice and piano parts, and then grow more complex and difficult. Short songs are sometimes extended with an additional verse, and the piano parts that are difficult to begin with are extended far beyond what would be appropriate if played with a singer. There are also key modulations and transpositions that grow out of the virtuosity. The orchestral pieces are transcriptions that follow
the original in both key and length. The creative aspect here is how well Soldano builds the complex sounds and voices of a full orchestra using just two hands.

There are 13 widely respected (and very difficult) piano solo arrangements of Rachmaninoff songs by Earl Wild (Ivory 74001, July/Aug 2004), but only 4 of those are also set here by Soldano. 12 of those appeared back in 1981 and one was added later. Julia Severus’s disc (Naxos 573468, Sept/Oct 2017) has 21 songs arranged for solo piano by 7 different people, including the pianist and the composer himself. 9 of those are also arranged by Soldano here. There are many others, notably Kocsis’s ‘Vocalise’) which has been recorded many times.

Rachmaninoff’s songs, despite their exceptional qualities, were slow to enter the standard repertoire. {Perhaps that was because of the Russian language, the Cyrillic alphabet, and often awkward translations. The difficulty of the piano parts challenges the best pianists. Most Western singers do not get much training in Russian, but with the resources now available, they are regularly programmed.

Soldano’s arrangements are very good. They don’t go over the top with virtuosic flair, but retain the musical integration of voice and piano. They are more akin to Rachmaninoff’s own transcriptions of ‘Lilacs’ and ‘Daisies’ than some of Wild’s tour de force arrangements.

One of the problems I faced here with the Rachmaninoff songs was which English translation to use. Soldano’s English titles are very close to accurate translations of the original Russian titles, but are not always the titles we are accustomed to seeing. The 1922 Gutheil edition had the original Cyrillic titles and English titles that are rarely an accurate translation of the Russian. Other published versions and various recordings have a variety of English titles. There is no universally accepted system of transliterating the 33 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. I’ll use one of my favorites, Op. 21:7, as an example. It is most often transliterated as ‘Zdes khorosho’, and translated as ‘Here it is beautiful,’ or more accurately, ‘Here it is good to be.’ Soldano lists it as ‘How peaceful’, and the 1922 edition calls it’ How fair this spot)

There is an excellent 2-piano arrangement of the Nocturnesby Ravel. Debussy himself did a piano 4-hands version of the Prelude to L’enfant Prodigue.Although not stated, I have to assume that Soldano used these published versions for two pianists as a starting point for his solo versions. His transcriptions show a good knowledge of Debussy’s orchestral scores as well. In the case of the Nocturnes,for simple listening pleasure, I always choose an orchestral rendition over any piano transcription. I respect Soldano both as a pianist and a transcriber, and heard some musical lines a little differently here. There is also an excellent booklet essay. This great-sounding recording is well worth hearing, especially for the Rachmaninoff songs.