Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3, Vocalise & The Isle of the Dead

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Wilson’s way with the music seems to owe more to the x-ray clarity of Toscanini and Szell...sprung like a sports car, tightly resilient on its bushings. — Fanfare, March/April 2023 More…

Release Date: 28th Oct 2022
Catalogue No: CHSA5297
Label: Chandos
Length: 67 minutes

Presto Editor's Choice

October 2022
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2022
Gramophone Awards

2023

Shortlisted - Orchestral

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

Work length20:41

Album only

Sinfonia of London, John Wilson

Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14

Work length5:30

$1.05

$1.30

$1.60

Sinfonia of London, John Wilson

Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3, Op. 44

Work length41:00

Album only

Sinfonia of London, John Wilson

I. Lento

Track length16:17

Album only

II. Adagio

Track length11:55

$2.15

$2.60

$3.20

III. Allegro

Track length12:48

$2.15

$2.60

$3.20

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About

Rachmaninoff’s tone poem The Isle of the Dead was composed in Dresden in 1908 – 09, inspired by the 1880 painting of that name by the Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin. The painting depicts a ferryman rowing a coffin towards the Isle of the Dead, and Rachmaninoff, unusually setting the piece in five beats to the bar, captures the atmosphere and the motion of oars in the water in the most extraordinary detail. Dedicated to the outstanding Ukrainian-born coloratura soprano Antonina Vasilyevna Nezhdanova, the ‘Vocalise’ was first performed, by her with the composer, in January 1916. After creating a version with orchestral accompaniment, Rachmaninoff then produced the version heard here, for orchestra alone. Following the Russian revolution and his exile to the USA, the compositional output of Rachmaninoff declined dramatically. In great demand both as a virtuoso performer and as a conductor, he toured extensively, but struggled to incorporate ‘modern music’ into his compositional style. In the mid 1930s he acquired a holiday villa in Lucerne, and surprised the world with his ‘Paganini’ Rhapsody, quickly followed by the Third Symphony. Sinfonia of London and John Wilson demonstrate exceptional ensemble playing throughout, and their glowing string sound suits this repertoire perfectly. Recorded in Surround Sound, and available as a Hybrid SACD

Reviews

March/April 2023

Wilson’s way with the music seems to owe more to the x-ray clarity of Toscanini and Szell...sprung like a sports car, tightly resilient on its bushings.

2nd December 2022

Wilson clearly has a flair for glitzy orchestral scores from the 20th century. Hearing this all-Rachmaninoff disc shows how well the sort of expertise required for film soundtracks also pays dividends...The Sinfonia of London’s playing is high-quality and Chandos’s recording, full, rich, atmospheric, is top of the class.

November 2022

I have never heard Rachmaninov’s imaginative scoring here [in The Isle of the Dead] brought out so vividly, allowing us to appreciate the powerful pictorial imagination of the composer.

December 2022

The roistering, rambunctious finale with its frequent changes of pace and mood and allusion to Russian dance is a kaleidoscopic medley requiring unanimity and co-ordination of the highest order and the pin-point accuracy of the Sinfonia here is mightily impressive.

October 2022

it was a typically canny move of Wilson to follow his splendid Hollywood Soundstage with Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3, premiered in Philadelphia just a couple of years before the earliest films featured on that album: the SoL's distinctive, swooning vintage string sound pays equally rich dividends here, though in what has to be one of the creepiest accounts of Isle of the Dead on record the same players summon such other-worldly glassiness that you'd swear theremins and/or Novachords were involved!

Classical CD Choice 29th November 2022

John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London here deliver an authoritative version of Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony, in impressive SACD surround sound... for those who want an SACD take on the work, this will become the gold standard.

Offer,Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3, Vocalise & The Isle of the Dead

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