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About Us

LEYERLE PUBLICATIONS is a company dedicated to bringing innovative and highly useful vocal music books, foreign-language music text translations and collections to all who are involved directly or indirectly with singing. High on our list of priorities is helping the student of voice become as self-sufficient as possible. To this end, we have been producing song anthologies which include both the word-for-word translations and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) spelling of the foreign language texts.

The now famous Leyerle Three and four-line Phonetic-Translation System consists of the International Phonetic Alphabet spelling of the foreign language text on the first line, the original foreign language on the middle line, and the word-for-word English translation on the third line. When further explication of an otherwise difficult to understand passage in the word-for-word translation is needed, a fourth line, presented in a more literary translation, is given. For those who may not be familiar with the system, the following is a sample from Nico Castel's monumental libretti series: ACT I of La Bohème:

 

The Leyerle Three and four-line Phonetic-Translation System

 

As the creator of the above system in 1977 and with the national publication of SONG ANTHOLOGY ONE in 1980, Leyerle Publications feels committed to make the system available in as much of the great song and operatic literature as we can. Singers, coaches, teachers, opera directors, conductors, librarians and vocal music enthusiasts in general have acclaimed the system as being of unparalleled magnitude as a linguistic tool for all who are involved in vocal music. Currently an ever-increasing number of book and music publishers are also adopting the system, as well. One of the more recent comments about Nico Castel's books was made by Will Graham, Director, Fletcher Foundation, North Carolina School for the Arts Opera Program:

"His books of major libretti of French, German and Italian operas may well represent the most important contribution to the art of opera singing in the last century."

We trust this will prove true for the new century, as well.

In addition to the opera libretti, we have many similar volumes in various art song editions, such as:

  • Beaumont Glass's five volumes of:
    • SCHUBERT'S COMPLETE SONG TEXTS (in two volumes)
    • BRAHMS' COMPLETE SONG TEXTS
    • HUGO WOLF'S COMPLETE SONG TEXTS
    • SCHUMANN'S COMPLETE SONG TEXTS
  • Also, we have two excellent volumes by Robert Gartside:
    • INTERPRETING THE SONGS OF MAURICE RAVEL
    • INTERPRETING THE SONGS OF GABRIEL FAURÉ.
In addition to the complete song texts, Professor Gartside discusses many interpretive aspects of the songs for both the singer and the pianist.

And the above is just a start.
We have other song anthologies and text translations in:

  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Russian
  • Swedish
  • Danish
  • Norwegian
  • Greek
  • Yiddish
  • Romanian
  • Chinese
  • Hebrew

In addition, we have a variety of song cycles and song sets too numerous to mention on this page, but which can be found quite easily on other sections of this website. Explore the possibilities!

About Nico Castel

About Bill Leyerle