IMSLP Forums

Hi,

I'm searching for Tchaikovsky's romances for voice but for ccontralto/mezzo-soprano for which ( if I'm not mistaken) were originally written ( Wikipedia cites first performer to be mezzo-soprano, although yea I know, not the most reliable source). And I've tried everything, but everywhere seems to be sheet music for soprano tessitura, I've even tried Russian sources with the same result.

I'm looking for sheet music written in key, in which here for example Borodina sings:

https://youtu.be/EI3TovPxCng?si=KZaDzfHP0vi91BY0

IMSLP has all of Tchaikovsky's romances as they were written (in their original keys), but there were also transpositions issued by his publishers so that they could be performed by different vocal ranges.

For example, his most famous song "None But the Lonely Heart" was written in D-flat major, for mezzo-soprano (or baritone), but it also later appeared in alternative versions for soprano or tenor (transposed to E major), and contralto or bass (in B major). These alternative versions weren't made by Tchaikovsky himself, although they were published with his permission.

The transpositions for each romance were published individually, as well as in bound collections for the different voice type, although it doesn't look as though any of them have been scanned and put on IMSLP yet. You still have all the original versions to work with though, some of which (like "None But the Lonely Heart") were written for mezzo-soprano in the first place.

And if you mean that you haven't found scores of any of them on IMSLP- it's a little unclear to me what you mean in the OP - there are many under "Collections" (e.g. "None But the Lonely Heart", his Op.6 No.6, can also be found with a German text in the collection "Song Classics (Various), for example, and that song can be found under "6 Romances, Op.6"

I've been a little unclear, but at least the answer above gave me an explanation why I cannot find some romances for lower voice and some I am able to find. At the time I was looking exactly for sheet music of "Lullaby/Kolybelnaya pesenya" for lower voice since I've heard Borodina and one other opera singer singning it in lower key then, I suppose, it was originally written for. And that was what I could not find. Instead I picked for me another song written originally for lower voice. It's still a mystery to me how were they able to perform it in lower key since transposition in romantic era is deemed to be unstyllistic, but I guess big singers are allowed to do that.

Where is the claim from that transposition was regarded as unstylistic? Songs in the Romantic era were almost always released in at least two keys simultaneously (at least in the US...), each of them for a pair of voice parts each. So far from being unstylistic, in the late 19th century to prepare solo vocal works for multiple voice types from the get-go was the norm.

For Tchaikovsky, I suggest using this site which will tell you exactly what the intended instrumentation is for a work, regardless of what was published. It's probably the most comprehensive and researched composer focused site out there
http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/page ... _and_Duets