Sergey Vassilievich Rachmaninov

With his second concerto disc, Yevgeny Sudbin celebrates the close relationship between two great Russian composers: Sergei Rachmaninov and Nikolai Medtner. Medtner would encourage his more famous colleague during the latter’s bouts of self-doubt, while Rachmaninov early on recognized Medtner’s unique gifts, pronouncing him the ‘greatest composer of our time’. The most sincere testament to their friendship is embodied in these two concertos, which the composers dedicated to one another.

Few Russian composers could resist setting verses by Alexander Pushkin, and his influence on the development of Russian music was indirectly as great as his influence on literature. This collection demonstrates the compelling power of the poet, and the beauty of the music he inspired. It is performed by Joan Rodgers, herself an acknowledged master of Russian repertoire, and Malcolm Martineau.

For modern audiences the name of Sergei Rachmaninov, who was born in 1873, conjures up great memorable tunes primarily from his second piano concerto (used in the film Brief Encounter) and second symphony; he was indeed the last flowering of Russian late Romanticism. For his contemporaries, however, he was one of the greatest pianists and who was an expert in expressing moods in the briefest time scale – he was a brilliant miniaturist. He wrote 17 Etudes-Tableaux and 26 Préludes, this collection provides all of the former and 5 of the latter including the one (in C# minor), written when was only 19, which became so popular that it haunted him as he was known to the general public by that piece alone. The Second Sonata is in one movement but three distinct sections, with the slower central movement providing some respite from the turbulence of the outer movements. The Variations on a theme of Corelli was Rachmaninov’s last work for solo piano and is based on the traditional tune La follia which Corelli used in his twelfth violin sonata. The Variations are skilfully wrought as they are in the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, the work that immediately followed it; the tune on which the Variations are made is the 24th Caprice for solo violin by the brilliant violinist-composer Paganini.

Following their acclaimed recording of Francesca da Rimini, the BBC Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor Gianandrea Noseda continue their exploration of Rachmaninoff’s three one-act operas.

The Miserly Knight is the finest of Rachmaninoff’s operas. If circumstances had been more favourable he would have composed far more of the stage, but the three short operas he did complete show that he had all the makings of a great opera composer.

It is quite possible that The Miserly Knight was inspired by Rachmaninoff’s spendthrift father who frittered away the family’s fortune and, following his sister’s death from diphtheria, separated from Sergei’s mother. The financial incompetence of Rachmaninoff’s father may have drawn the composer to Pushkin’s ‘little tragedy’ The Miserly Knight, that Pushkin wrote in the autumn of 1830 in which the rich Baron’s destitute son is forced to consider murdering his father in order to access his inheritance. Pushkin’s drama makes an excellent opera text, full of striking phrases and images, and almost ideal for musical setting in its sequence of episodes and ideas.

Opera is one of Gianandrea Noseda’s great musical passions and it is a genre he has explored to stunning effect with the BBC Philharmonic. In September he became Music Director at Teatro Regio in Turin, one of Europe’s leading opera houses, and he also appeared with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and La Scala, Turin.

This enthralling recording features amongst the soloists, the talented young bass Ildar Abdrazakov and tenor Misha Didyk. This Summer Abrazakov had his debut at the Salzburg Festival and 2010 will see him in a new production of Attila at the Metropolitan Opera, while Didyk has, during the past three seasons, emerged as one of opera’s most exciting young lyric tenors.