Is this name spelled Rachmaninoff or Rachmaninov?

Comments ( 4 )

1. del_icious_manager says

   There are many ways to spell names which are transliterated from one writing system to another (eg from the Cyrillic alphabet used by the Russian language to our Latin alphabet). And because each language (such as English, French, German, Italian etc etc) has different sounds and its own way of using the Latin alaphabet according the needs of the language, you will find that Russian composers’ names vary a great deal. Tchaikovsky is a good example:

   In English: Tchaikovsky (although I have no idea why the ‘T’ is there!)
   German: Tschaikowsky
   Italian: Ciaikovski
   Swedish: Tjaikovskij

   I spell RAKHMANINOV this way (as do many others). In English, we don’t have the hard, gutteral, ‘ch’ which German has and which the Cyrillic spelling of RaKHmaninov’s name demands. Therefore, it makes no sense to me to spell his name in English as if we spoke German. So there is a ‘kh’ spelling which represents this hard gutteral sound (similarly in ‘Khachaturian’ and ‘Khrennikov’).

   Your spelling is very common in North America but less common in Europe, where the most common spelling in ‘Rachmaninov’. The ‘ff’ in your spelling is correct in a way because, in Russian, the final ‘v’ of a word is often quite hard and more resembles (but is not identical to) a ‘f’ (so, really, one ‘f’ would do – why are there 2?).

   In short, there are no completely correct ways of spelling transliterated names (including Rakhmaninov / Rachmaninov / Rachmaninoff), only more or less sensible ones.

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2. musicyh says

   Both are correct. However, the composer himself used Rachmaninoff when he was in the West. His name in Russian: Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов – with standard transliteration, Sergej (й is usually transliterated as ‘j’ or ‘y’, contrary to the popular ‘Sergei’ spelling, but that’s beside the point) Vasil’evich Rachmaninov/Rakhmaninov – when transliterated into roman alphabets, “нов” spells ‘nov’, but in the Russian language, a ‘v’ at the end of a word is pronounced with an ‘f’ sound – so one would still pronounce his name as Rachmanino-f no matter which way it was spelt. That’s also probably why he chose Rachmaninoff as his spelling.

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3. Classicslove345 says

   Rachmaninoff spelt his name as “Rachmaninoff” on all his documents upon entering America, and thereafter. Thus, “Rachmaninoff” is the composer’s official choice. However, if one looks at the cyrillic spelling of his name, “Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов”, the “в” in the last name translates ligustically to a “V” sound. Thus, the pronunciation, and as some would say, the spelling, should be “Rachmaninov.”

   There is no real definatve answer on this topic, to be sure. However, people seem to be using “Rachmaninoff” more than “Rachmaninov” these days.

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4. Socrates1944 says

   The compact disk I have of Piano Concerto No2 has
   Rachmaninov,and I am unaware of the other spelling of his
   name.

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