This program offers an intimate journey into the expressive universe of Rachmaninoff, featuring romances for voice and piano as well as preludes for solo piano, composed between the late 19th and early 20th centuries — a period prior to the composer’s voluntary exile following the Bolshevik Revolution. Far from his homeland for the rest of his life, Rachmaninoff never returned to the song genre, making these works particularly touching testaments to his connection with the Russian language, poetry, and memory.

In the concert, Nikolay Pestov will be joined by two special guests: baritone Dmitrii Grinikh and soprano Sara Vujošević Jovanović, who will perform a selection of romances based on poems by major Russian authors and German poets translated into Russian. These love songs — románsy — reveal multiple facets of the human soul: tenderness, melancholy, hope, farewell, and ecstasy.

The program is dedicated to Rachmaninoff as a pianist-composer, whose piano writing combines technical demands with expressive power. Nikolay Pestov will perform emblematic works from the composer’s piano repertoire, including the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2, as well as preludes from the Op. 23 and Op. 32 cycles, representing different creative phases of the composer, from youth to artistic maturity.

“Sounds of the Soul” is an encounter with music that speaks directly to the heart — a recital where words and sound merge into a profound, poetic, and emotionally intense experience.