Believe me not, friend Op.14 No.7 (1894)

They answered Op.21 No.4 (1900)

Spring waters Op.14 No.11 (1894)

Rachmaninov too was inclined to give the piano no little prominence in his songs. In comparison with Tchaivkosky’s pianistically modest setting of the same words, his Do not believe, my friend is a display of keyboard bravura. Happily, it restricts its most extravagant piano scoring to the massively passionate postlude. With They answered he resisted the temptation to compete with Liszt in his setting of the same Hugo poem (Comment, disaient-ils) and achieved one of his most effectively balanced as well as most judiciously proportioned settings. Spring Waters is another piano bravura piece but one where the voice matches it in its exultant expression to create a song which, probably more than any other, demonstrates what was lost to the world when the composer exiled himself not only from Russia but also the inspiration he found in its poetry.