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Rachmaninoff: Vocalise Easy Piano solo sheet music, Noten, partitura, spartiti, partition, 楽譜
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Vocalise (Rachmaninoff)
“Vocalise” is a song by Sergei Rachmaninoff, composed and published in 1915 as the last of his 14 Songs or 14 Romances, Op. 34. Written for high voice (soprano or tenor) with piano accompaniment, it contains no words, but is sung using only one vowel of the singer’s choosing (see also vocalise). It was dedicated to soprano singer Antonina Nezhdanova. It is performed in various instrumental arrangements more frequently than in the original vocal version.
Although the original publication stipulates that the song may be sung by either soprano or tenor voice, a soprano usually performs it. Though the original composition is in the key signature of C-sharp minor, it is sometimes transposed into a variety of keys, allowing a performer to choose a vocal range more suitable to the natural voice, so that artists who may not have the higher vocal range of a soprano can perform the song.
“Vocalise” has been arranged for many instrumental and vocal combinations. Examples are the following on Wikipedia.
For solo instrument:
for solo piano, many arrangements, including by Alexander Siloti, Alan Richardson (1951), Zoltán Kocsis, Earl Wild, Sergio Fiorentino
for organ, arranged by Cameron Carpenter
for double bass, arranged by Gary Karr
for guitar, arranged by Slash
for saxophone, arranged by Larry Teal
for theremin, arranged by Thorwald Jørgensen[2]
for trumpet, arranged by Rolf SmedvigDerivative works Richard Smallwood adopted the main theme of “Vocalise” as the basis for his composition “The Resurrection”, the final cut on The Richard Smallwood Singers’ debut recording in 1982. The Pet Shop Boys song “Happiness Is an Option” on their 1999 album Nightlife incorporates a large portion of the “Vocalise” melody in each verse, performed on oboe as background material beneath the spoken text.