Rachmaninov Iso

The combination of Dallas and Litton offers a conductor who adores Sergei Rachmaninov (he has recorded all the symphonies) and understands the works from a pianist’s perspective, an orchestra with a glorious and old-fashioned string sound of the kind with which the composer would be familiar, a hall to record in which is one of the best in the world, and let’s not forget Stephen Hough who has already won two Gramophone ‘Record of the Year’ accolades for his concerto recordings. As the results here triumphantly show, all our hopes have been fulfilled, and more.

Over the course of almost 10 years, Yevgeny Sudbin has been recording Sergei Rachmaninov's works for piano and orchestra. Reviewers remarked on the soloists transcendental virtuosity and kaleidoscopic keyboard colour (BBC Music Magazine) and enjoyed piano-playing with depth of tone, subtlety and richness of texture, and scintillating dynamism allied to acute lyrical sensibility (Gramophone). The grand finale of Sudbin's Rachmaninov cycle combines the two best-loved concertos No. 2 in C minor and No. 3 in D minor but it also constitutes a home-coming of a kind, as it was recorded in London, Yevgeny Sudbins base since 1997. For his partners in these monumental and almost iconic concertos, Sudbin has chosen the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Sakari Oramo.

Here is another fascinating issue in their SACD series. Again Dutton Vocalion (Epoch) have been able to obtain original four-track surround recordings never before issued in multi-channel SACD. Artur Rubinsteun is soloist in Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns' Piano Concertos and De Falla's Nights In The Gardens Of Spain, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The Symphonic Dances, an orchestral suite in three sections, was the last work Rachmaninov completed and proved one of his most popular compositions. Although rarely sentimental, it draws on many of the composer’s reminiscences of Russia, from where he emigrated in 1917. Gergiev couples the Symphonic Dances with another work in three movements by a Russian émigré to the USA. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements was written between 1942-45 and was the first work Stravinsky completed after his arrival in the USA.

Rachmaninov’s vast Second Symphony was composed when he was at the pinnacle of his career as a composer, pianist and conductor. Filled with emotion and brimming with beautiful melodies, it is a masterpiece and the epitome of the Romantic symphony. It is presented here in its entirety. All sympathetic listeners agree that the Second Symphony contains the very best of Rachmaninov. Deliberately paced and rhythmically flexible, it is, above all, propelled by the wonderfully fertile melody of which he was such a master. The orchestral sound is full and rich, but unlike such contemporaries as Strauss and Mahler, Rachmaninov is relatively modest in his orchestral demands.

If you regard Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony as a decadent, nostalgic remnant of Czarist Russia, then you really should hear this performance. The music couldn’t sound fresher, lighter, or more modern. It’s not that Vasily Petrenko slights those lush, romantic elements, but he certainly doesn’t dwell on them either. As for the rest of the disc, the presence of Vocalise was inevitable, but the Caprice bohémien is a delightful work, far too little known, and it’s as splendidly played as the symphony. EMI’s engineers do everyone proud. This is definitely a distinctive view of Rachmaninov, a breath of fresh air, and a nice complement to more traditional approaches.

In November 2017, the Berlin Philharmonic gave a series of concerts in Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Japan. It was the last tour of Asia that Rattle would undertake as the orchestra's chief conductor, and their performances are thoroughly documented on these discs. Four of the discs are derived from the final pair of concerts, which were given in Tokyo's magnificent Suntory Hall, while the other, a performance of Ravel's G Major Piano Concerto with the winner of the 2015 Warsaw Chopin competition as soloist, was recorded in the Berlin Philharmonie before the tour began. he recordings are astonishingly vivid, and the whole set provides a very impressive showcase of the Berlin Phil's current condition as it nears the end of Rattle's reign.

In her early twenties the Armenian pianist Nareh Arghamanyan, winner of the 2008 Montreal International Music Competition, belongs to the promising generation of today's fine pianists. The last season saw Nareh Arghamanyan making an impressive New York debut at the Frick collection as well as at San Francisco Performances, resulting in a reinvitation to their 'Young Master Series'. Arghamanyan's all-Rachmaninov recital reveals a more disciplined, controlled, architecturally aware, and expressively sophisticated artist.

From the heyday of Svyatoslav Richter, all the concertos recorded by DG from 1958 to 62 were assembled into 3 pieces (except Disc 3, these are 1st time on SACD). Features the works by Robert Schumann, W.A. Mozart, Sergey Prokofiev, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Sergei Rachmaninov & P.I. Tchaikovsky. This is a Sviatoslav Richter's special collaboration with Wittold Lovitki, Kurt Sanderling, Herbert von Karajan, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, etc. Features the new mastering from the original analogue master tapes.

For the second installment of their Rachmaninoff symphonies cycle for EMI, Vasily Petrenko and his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cover the most popular and significant of the corpus, the Second Symphony in E minor. Also to the disc added the three delightful fragments from Rachmaninoff's early opera Aleko (1892) – The Women's Dance, Intermezzo and the Men's Dance – are offered as appetizer.