Ex. 2-15: When Yesterday We Met

No. 13 from Rachmaninoff's "15 Romances" (Op. 26, 1906). The poem by Yakov Polonsky describes a chance encounter with a former lover on the street — her eyes have lost their light, her cheeks are pale. She silences him with a gesture and pulls her hand away. The narrator is left with a devastating sense of final farewell.

The piano accompaniment tolls like funeral bells beneath the vocal line. Some commentators have noted an allusion to the Dies Irae — a Gregorian chant motif that haunted Rachmaninoff throughout his life — near the close of the song.

Track 14 from the album Russian Romances by Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Oleg Boshniakovich (1991)
Spotify