Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 1

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Rachmaninov's First Symphony of 1895... published only after the composer's death. Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic have the work's measure and their performance has a full-blooded... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2008, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 2nd Jun 2008
Catalogue No: CHAN10475
Label: Chandos
Series: Gianandrea Noseda Rachmaninov series
Length: 74 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

July 2008

Orchestral Choice

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Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead - Symphonic Poem, Op. 29

Work length20:31

Album only

Gianandrea Noseda, BBC Philharmonic
Recorded: 30, 31 January 2008
Recording Venue: Studio 7, NBH, Manchester

Rachmaninoff: Symphony in D Minor "Youth Symphony"

Work length10:26

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Gianandrea Noseda, BBC Philharmonic
Recorded: 30, 31 January 2008
Recording Venue: Studio 7, NBH, Manchester

Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13

Work length43:35

$10.00

$12.90

$17.50

Gianandrea Noseda, BBC Philharmonic
Recorded: 30, 31 January 2008
Recording Venue: Studio 7, NBH, Manchester

I. Grave

Track length12:37

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

II. Allegro animato

Track length9:05

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

III. Larghetto

Track length9:37

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

IV. Allegro con fuoco

Track length12:16

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

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Regarded as one of the most remarkable composers of the twentieth century, Serge Rachmaninoff wrote three romantically inclined symphonies, two of which are now standard orchestral repertoire. However, the premiere of Symphony No. 1 was such a disaster that Rachmaninoff refrained from composing anything more for the next three years. The conductor, Glazunov, is reputed to have been drunk, and Rachmaninoff was unable to attend the entire performance. He reacted by tearing up the score. Thankfully for posterity, the instrumental parts were preserved and rediscovered in 1945, permitting the work to be restored. It is a work full of youthful fervour, distinctive and sweeping themes, and nationalist sentiments, and is now widely regarded as a vivid example of his early talent. It is complemented here by the ‘Youth Symphony’, the first movement of a projected but never completed symphony in D minor, composed when Rachmaninoff was only seventeen, and the great symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead, inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting of the same name which Rachmaninoff had seen on display in Paris in 1907.

Composed in 1909, it is still a relatively early work, but contains some of the dark Russian spiritual qualities which Rachmaninoff was to develop further in his later compositions.

Reviews

July 2008

Rachmaninov's First Symphony of 1895... published only after the composer's death. Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic have the work's measure and their performance has a full-blooded intensity and fire. The Isle of the Dead, haunting and powerful in conception, is an undisputed masterpiece. Noseda captures the work's concentration and anguish with its inexorable sense of movement.

August 2008

Accomplished and easy to enjoy; but, in a crowded marketplace, not really a front-runner.

1st June 2008

With the BBC Phil, he delves deep into the dark, gloomy recesses of the Russian soul, brilliantly evoking the composer’s brooding, headily chromatic tone poem The Isle of the Dead...Chandos’s brilliant recording [of Symphony 1] enhances a performance that takes us on an emotional rollercoaster ride: the passion and despair of the composer’s unrequited love for a married woman is drawn with febrile drama here.

21st June 2008

Rachmaninov's First Symphony...here receives a landmark performance from the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda. When you listen to it alongside a mature masterpiece, particularly such a darkly atmospheric performance of The Isle of the Dead as this one, it is possible to appreciate how Rachmaninov could deem passages in the symphony to be "weak, childish, forced and bombastic", yet Noseda demonstrates the music's power, eloquent beauty and structural cohesion.
Written when he was still in his late teens, the First Symphony already displays distinctive Rachmaninov fingerprints in harmonic terms and in the shaping of melodic ideas, and is in the grip of the fatalism that is rarely absent from his music. Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic recognise this general tenor, but the spectrum for expression of it is broad, from vigorous passion in the first movement and finale to the wistful rumination of the central Larghetto.

6th June 2008

Nothing could be more liquid or gloomy than [Noseda's] reading of the superb symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead. His gifts for mood-juggling and structural flow ensure equally fine accounts of the student Youth Symphony and the composer’s official, stormy Symphony No 1. The full Chandos sound makes everything glow in the dark, especially the shadowy scherzo.

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