The Russian word romans (“romance”) denotes an art song whose lyrics usually –– but not always! –– deal with the subject of Romantic love. A counterpart to the German Lied or French romance, the Russian romans embarked on its journey late in the 18th century. Predictably, the earliest romansy imitated the Western models and were set in French and Italian. As it happens time and again in Russian history, a Western innovation timidly arrived in Russia, steeped in the country’s unique culture, and after years of evolution re-entered the West as something strikingly new, fresh, and… yes, indeed “Russian.” When it comes to the genre in question, the West discovered the dramatic romansy by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff not so long ago. Our album L’histoire de la romance russe is designed to show what preceded these glorious masterpieces.
