Rachmaninov - Symphonies and Orchestral Music

Orchestras / Ensembles Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Genres Symphony
Composers Rachmaninov, Sergey
Periods Romantic
Conductors Shui, Lan
Label BIS
24 FLAC Discount

Sergei Rachmaninov was one of the twentieth century’s outstanding pianists, but the large body of purely orchestral music he composed is no less an expression of his musical character. His great strength was that he managed to preserve intact a vision he had discovered very early in life. This contemporary of Schoenberg, Scriabin, Ravel and Ives was unconcerned with musical fashions and had no wish to be a pioneer. Instead, and over a period of half a century he refined and deepened a language which derived naturally from his late-nineteenth-century Russian background. With this four-disc box set, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Lan Shui present a comprehensive collection of Rachmaninov’s music for orchestra – from the Scherzo in D minor, his first surviving piece for orchestra, completed just before his fifteenth birthday to the canonical works: the Symphonies and the Symphonic Dances.

The recordings were made between 2008 and 2015, with the three symphonies (previously released on separate discs) described as ‘eine formidable Gesamteinspielung’ on the website Pizzicato. But there is much more to Rachmaninov’s orchestral music besides the symphonies, and this box offers the listener opportunity to explore the young composer’s fascination with Gypsy themes (in the excerpts from the opera Aleko and Capriccio bohémien) as well as his lifelong preoccupation with death, in the form of the four notes of the Dies irae plainchant motif. This is heard again and again in Rachmaninov’s music, up until his very last work, the Symphonic Dances, where, at the very end of the third and final dance, this symbol of death is finally laid to rest.
 
 
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Included albums

  • Rachmaninov - Symphonies and Orchestral Music

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    Disc 1
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 45:07
    		1 I. Grave - Allegro ma non troppo 14:35
    		2 II. Allegro animato 08:36
    		3 III. Larghetto 09:41
    		4 IV. Allegro con fuoco 12:15
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Symphonic Movement in D minor 14:16
    		5 Symphonic Movement in D minor 14:16
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Prince Rostislav 14:30
    		6 Prince Rostislav 14:30
    Disc 2
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 60:45
    		1 I. Largo - Allegro moderato 22:04
    		2 II. Allegro molto 09:47
    		3 III. Adagio 14:41
    		4 IV. Allegro vivace 14:13
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 05:53
    		5 Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 05:53
    Disc 3
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 44:14
    		1 I. Lento - Allegro moderato - Allegro 17:56
    		2 II. Adagio ma non troppo - Allegro vivace 12:19
    		3 III. Allegro 13:59
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 36:34
    		4 I. Non allegro - Lento - Tempo I 11:51
    		5 II. Andante con moto: Tempo di valse 10:34
    		6 III. Lento assai - Allegro vivace - Lento assai - Allegro vivace 14:09
    Disc 4
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    The Rock, Op. 7 14:21
    		1 The Rock, Op. 7 14:21
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Four excerpts from the opera ‘Aleko’ 14:35
    		2 Introduction. Andante cantabile 02:24
    		3 Men’s Dance 04:22
    		4 Intermezzo 02:51
    		5 Women’s Dance 04:58
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Capriccio bohémien, Op. 12 18:27
    		6 Capriccio bohémien, Op. 12 18:27
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Scherzo in D minor 04:43
    		7 Scherzo in D minor 04:43
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    Prelude to the opera ‘The Miserly Knight’ Op. 24 06:28
    		8 Prelude to the opera ‘The Miserly Knight’ Op. 24 06:28
    Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergey
    The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 20:02
    		9 The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 20:02