Rachmaninov: Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 - arrangement for orchestra

Award-winning conductor Vasily Petrenko’s exceptional abilities as a renowned, inspiring conductor with major media appeal set him apart from the majority of his contemporaries. He is the youngest ever Principal (now Chief) Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and will add the role of Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic beginning with the 2013/2014 season. His commitment to musical education has led him to act as Principal Conductor or the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and to be a founding member of the board of the UK’s "Building on Excellence: Orchestras for the 21st Century” scheme, which endeavours to increase the participation in classical and cultural events amongst British youth.

Vasily Petrenko conducts the RLPO for Rachmaninov’s third and most expressive symphony, paired with his capriccio on gypsy themes, the Caprice Bohémien.

This will be the first of a run of exciting releases focusing on the Russian music of Petrenko’s heritage.

Since Petrenko took up the baton of the RLPO’s Principal Conductor in 2006 (and then Chief Conductor in 2009), this partnership has flourished; and the orchestra is now described as “premier league”. Vasily has now committed to staying with the orchestra until 2015.

Produced by Steve Epstein / Engineered by Richard King

José Serebrier (b. December 1938) is a Uruguayan-born conductor and composer of European ancestry with an international reputation based in New York. He conducts orchestras all over the world in all continents, including South America, USA, Spain and Turkey and in the 2010-2011 season he will conduct no less than 3 series of concerts in mainland China. For Warner Classics José Serebrier has recorded all the Glazunov Symphonies with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to great critical acclaim, of which the most recent release is: Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 9 - 2564689042 (2CD)

In Moscow in April 2010, a live recording was made of maestro Serebrier conducting the closing concert of the 1st Rostropovich International Festival in the Tchaikovsky Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire of Music, featuring Rachmaninov’s great choral work ‘The Bells’.

The orchestra for this recording was the Russian National Orchestra (http://www.russianarts.org/rno/index.cfm), much recorded by Deutsche Grammophon, and regarded in a recent Gramophone poll (December 2008 : http://www.russianarts.org/rno/pressrelease.cfm?prid=081201.cfm) as one of the top symphony orchestras in the world alongside the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras.

Leopold Stokowski was a close friend and champion to many composers, especially the Russians who where exiled in the USA after the revolution. Chief among them were Stravinsky and Rachmaninov. The US premiere of The Rite of Spring was conducted by Stokowski, and in 1920 the US premiere of Rachmaninov’s choral symphony ‘The Bells’ was given by Stokowski, who together with the composer had premiered the revised version of the first Piano Concerto.

It was natural that when Rachmaninov completed his Third Symphony in 1935, Stokowski would give the premiere, which took place on 6 November 1936. Although the work is the composer’s orchestral masterpiece, it was met with a lukewarm reception, and Stokowski never conducted it again in public. Rachmaninov’s music seemed in danger of falling out of favour, and the appalling Grove 5th edition entry on the composer may well have coloured Stokowski’s decision to reduce the number of the composer’s works he programmed.

However, at the age of 93 Stokowski returned to the studio, and to his friend’s Third Symphony with an orchestra of hand-picked London musicians. The recording is a remarkable achievement. Stokowski proved that he had new things to say about this masterpiece, and the performance bristles with excitement and tension.

‘I simply make music, and people have always been foolish enough to pay me for it. I never told them that I would have done it all for nothing.’ Leopold Stokowski, CBS TV 1976

‘In the case of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony, there is the purely historical advantage of having a generally well-engineered stereo recording by the man who had conducted the world premiere back in 1936’ Gramophone review, July 1998

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

An experienced conductor, Rachmaninov nevertheless left only the three recordings to be found on this album showcasing his skill with the baton.

Also Available: 8110601, 8110602: Rachmaninov Plays Rachmaninov