Rachmaninov was so horrified by the disastrous 1897 premiere of his First Symphony that he became ‘a changed man,’ to use his own words. For two years after that fateful evening, he composed almost nothing, and occupied himself by conducting operas in Moscow and by concertising at home and abroad. The trauma caused Rachmaninov to […]

Sergei Rachmaninov began his Third Symphony in August 1935 at Senar, his Swiss villa, while riding a final wave of popular success. His ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’ had enjoyed a successful premiere the year before, and subsequent performances had gone far to mute criticism that the composer’s well of inspiration had dried up. […]

It is commonplace to observe how little separates the cradle from the grave. For some, the words ‘womb’, ‘room’, ‘doom’ and ‘tomb’ have sufficed to encapsulate the human experience. When infant mortality rates in the developed countries were higher than they are today, families could hardly help being reminded that last night’s lullaby might be […]

Receiving its first ever release on CD, this legendary performance of Rachmaninov’s super-romantic Second Symphony conducted by Paul Kletzki will be seized up by collectors and bargain hunters alike. From Ashkenazy’s remarkable survey of the Rachmaninov orchestral works comes ‘The Isle of the Dead’. Reviewing it, Gramophone magazine writes: ‘a searingly powerful reading of ‘The […]

Asked in later life to name his favourite works, Rachmaninov chose not his orchestral masterpieces nor those for piano but two of his choral works, the ‘Vespers’ and this ‘choral symphony’ of sorts, ‘The Bells’ based on verses by Edgar Allan Poe. It is good to welcome back Dutoit’s spacious and beautifully recorded account and […]

Berlioz’s full-blown Romantic symphony was inspired by his infatuation with a pretty British ingénue named Harriet Smithson and one of the work’s greatest recording artists was Charles Munch. His RCA recordings are well known but very rare is his Philips recording made in 1966 with the Hungarian Radio and Television Orchestra.

On the face of it, the Strauss family would seem to symbolise everything that is late-nineteenth-century Austrian. It was not always so: the grandfather of Johann Strauss I was not only Hungarian but Jewish and had been part of the wave of immigrants from Hungary attracted by Vienna’s enduring prosperity. Johann I himself, made every […]

Famous for his waltzes and polkas, the popularity of Johann Strauss has endured, not just compositions he wrote himself but music arranged by others. Strangely enough, for one of the greatest composers of dance music, he never composed a ballet. This album couples two such arrangements, both for the ballet. Antal Doráti’s arrangement, entitled ‘Graduation […]

The Swedish-Russian soprano, Elisabeth Söderström, made several landmark recordings for Decca – operas by Janacek, the complete songs of Rachmaninov and Sibelius both of which were recorded with Vladimir Ashkenazy. With Ashkenazy too she recorded songs by Chopin and her lyric/dramatic soprano fully captures the range of these songs, from tenderness to pathos. Ashkenazy is […]

This generously compiled CD brings together two great sopranos – Hildegard Behrens and Elly Ameling – in ravishing French music for the voice and orchestra.  The entire Ameling/de Waart recording (Ravel, Duparc, Debussy) is coupled with the Berlioz cycle, the former making a welcome return to the catalogue after a long absence and showcasing the […]

The take-over of Hungary and Czechoslovakia by their respective Communist governments a few years after the end of World War II had one curious side-effect: it proved to be the greatest event that ever occurred in the world of Haydn scholarship. In Hungary, the vast Esterházy Archives, previously closed to all except the very occasional […]

Christmas in Leipzig, 1723 Advent was a time of penitence in the Lutheran as in other Christian traditions. In Leipzig, the first Sunday in Advent was treated with some pomp as the beginning of the church year, and the service included a cantata. But on the other three Sundays, music was simple and the only […]