Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov · section 3 of 96

Translator's Note

Our inexpressible satisfaction at the honour the eminent head of the Russian school did us, in entrusting us with the delicate — but still more attractive and flattering — task of translating his Manual of Harmony, was sadly diminished by our keen regret at the painful and premature loss of our illustrious and revered master.

The French musical world knows Nikolai Andreyevich as a creative genius; our aim in this translation is to make the theorist known as well, and to spread his incomparable teaching method in France, as has been done in Germany.

We think it needless to dwell on the general merits of this Manual, and in particular on the ingenious skill with which it treats the most important part of harmony: modulation.

The name of its author alone — a man who joined sound learning to rare modesty — should be enough to introduce and recommend a work meant to be of real service to professionals and amateurs of musical science alike.

For our part, we have aimed at a translation as exact and faithful as possible; where the demands of the language obliged us to depart slightly from the Russian text, we have tried to make up for it with remarks that will stand in for these slight and unavoidable imperfections.

Félix Dorfmann