What's the "correct" way to spell his name?

...Both?

Both.

Friendly reminder: this is the piano forum, for discussing pianos

Seems like its a common problem where people post unrelated topics in this forum. Don't the moderators have the ability to move posts to the other forums if they belong there?

Funny, I was just thinking that. It seems to be happening a lot more lately. It kind of bugs me and I thought maybe I'm being uptight. But when you think about it, with the many threads that show up on this forum it's a lot easier to sift through them and find the info/topics you're interested in when they're properly categorized.

When I was a kid, all the English language LP's referred to him as Rachmaninoff.

Somewhat later in the Era of International Good Feeling and Warm Fuzzies, the Soviets became Russians and Rachmaninoff became Rachmaninov. There were other changes, but those two were the most significant.

I think the V is closer to the original Russian.

Mea culpa to the forum content editors for contributing to the "problem" of hopelessly inappropriate threads.

Ah, but at least you always do it so eloquently

The only "correct" way to spell his name is Рахманинов. As turandot says, fashions in transliteration seem to change.

Thank you Tur and David,

Nicely said. This reminds me of a story (Doesn't everything?)

Jonathan Sternberg was a conductor at Temple University, where I attended school. I had a part time position as assistant manager to the orchestra and one of my responsibilities was receiving music from the publisher and organizing it for distribution to the orchestra. It was a fun job.

One day Jonathan came into the office and asked for the score to the Shostakovich (pronounced "Shahs - tahk - koh - vich", without an exaggerated stress on the third syllable).

At 19 years old, I quickly replied, "You mean the Shostakovich." (Pronounced Shahs - tuh - KO' - vich)

Jonathan gave me a silent look for about 3 seconds and then replied without a drop of condescension, "No Richard, that is not what I meant. You see, we may say (Shahs - tuh - KO' - vich)... but HE said (Shahs - tahk - koh - vich).

I know this isn't easy to understand in writing. Anyway, thank you Jonathan!

Some Russian once told me;

"It's not SIH LOT TI , it's ZEE LOT TI!"

Well, wrong forum or not - at least this is interesting.

More interesting than a lot of recent threads on here........

Sorry about the wrong forum post; I didn't really give it any thought because I was busy learning a song (I bet you can’t guess who it was by).

Thanks all for the good answers and stories. As always, it is much appreciated!

Actually, it's Рахманинов. (I hope this displays correctly for everyone.) Both of you transliterations are fine.

Ted

"It's not SIH LOT TI , it's ZEE LOT TI!"



And that is why you will see it spelled Ziloti on occassion, however the death certificate says Siloti and his mother's maiden name Rachmaninoff.