Rachmaninov: The Rock - Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 7

Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra follow their acclaimed recordings of ballets by Stravinsky with a disc that features the first and last published orchestral works by Sergei Rachmaninov.

The disc opens with The Isle of the Dead, which was inspired by the painting by Arnold Böcklin and based on the first notes of the plainchant setting of the Dies iræ.

The Rock was inspired by an image from a short story by Chekhov, and shows the youthfulness of a composer just turned twenty.

The Symphonic Dances, by contrast, sum up a lifetime’s musical and emotional experience. The composer noted that its three movements depicted the sequence of Midday – Twilight – Midnight.

Avie’s tenth release with the RLPO and third with their music director Vasily Petrenko, is the first in a series of orchestral works and concertos by Rachmaninov. It features the Symphonic Dances, and the symphonic poems Isle of the Dead and The Rock.

Avie’s fruitful association with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra yields its tenth release, and the third with Vasily Petrenko, the youngest Music Director in the RLPO’s illustrious history and winner of the Classic FM/Gramophone Young Artist of the Year award in 2007. A native of St. Petersburg, Petrenko appropriately continues his exploration of Russian repertoire with the first in a series of orchestral works and concertos by Sergei Rachmaninov.

“The Liverpudlians could easily be mistaken for a crack Russian orchestra – the key ingredient is the commitment of the playing, the sense of an orchestra at its peak.” Financial Times

“Everybody wants Vasily Petrenko, the blond, galvanising young Russian who, in two years as principal conductor, has transformed the artistic profile of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Feel that crackle of electricity...the orchestra’s ensemble spirit is so tight that you could cut yourself on the music’s edges.” The Times

Under Gianandrea Noseda, the BBC Philharmonic’s epic Rachmaninoff series continues with a recording of Symphony No.2, coupled with The Rock.

Unlikely his First Symphony, Symphony No.2 is standard orchestral repertoire. A recent concert at the Bridgewater Hall, elicited the review, ‘Noseda showed his remarkable affinity with Rachmaninoff’s style. He combines an ability to sustain the long structures of its emotional climaxes with a vocalistic approach to phrasing which lifts the tunes out of the texture and lefts them sing. It’s almost operatic in its vividness.’ City Life.

The challenge of making his mark with that ultimate big statement, a symphony, still faced Rachmaninoff as he headed into his mid-thirties. Posterity now accepts that he had probably cracked a tough nut with his First Symphony (CHAN 10475). Yet the 1897 premiere, poorly conducted under disputed circumstances by Glazunov, was so unfavourably received that it forced Rachmaninoff into creative silence for the next three years. Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony was drafted alongside an equally ambitious Second Piano Sonata in a charming garden villa in Dresden, where the whole family had settled in late 1906. The finished product turned out to be one of the longest of all Russian symphonies. Breadth, though, is of the essence of the Second Symphony’s wealth of lovingly wrought and subtly interlinked thematic material. As one critic observed at the 1908 St Petersburg premiere, conducted with his usual first-rate flexibility by Rachmaninoff, ‘the new E minor Symphony… may be slightly over long for the general audience, but how fresh, how beautiful it is’.

The accomplished fantasia of 1893, The Rock offers an excellent example of Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestration as acknowledged by Rachmaninoff’s original dedication.