CD REVIEW -
RACHMANINOFF
SYMPHONY No.1 / SYMPHONIC DANCES
Sinfonia of London / John Wilson
CHANDOS CHSA 5351
[TT 77:23]
The award-winning
orchestra conducted by John
Wilson has been playing this
symphony at concerts to
exceptional critical acclaim for
some time now and Chandos have
been slow in issuing a recording.
Now, at last, it’s here.
The first ever
performance in 1897 turned out to
be a disastrous occasion with
possibly poorly prepared players
conducted by a (reportedly)
drunken conductor, the composer
Glazunov, which plunged the
24-year-old Rachmaninoff into a
mental breakdown and a three-year
depression. Wilson, however,
rates the symphony very highly
and the 1945 reconstructed
version performed here is the one
to have. The Guardian review
described it in concert as
"joy-filled …. the
orchestra bring a whole new
dimension to listening".
With the quality
of the playing and sound a given,
I found all the music on the
album pleasurable and have
returned to it more often than I
had expected to. I like the
symphony's opening –
described by David Fanning in his
booklet notes as
"portentous" – and
through the first movement there
is a tad of the great
Tchaikovsky's influence. The
fourth movement finale includes a
familiar march-like tune from the
1960s when it was used as the
title music of the BBC's Panorama
programme.
The main work has
never matched the public
popularity of the Symphony
No.2, Piano Concerto
No.2 or Rhapsody on a
Theme of Paganini. I hope
the label may have plans to
record JW and the SoL in the last
two works. It is said that good
things come in threes, so
admirers of this outstanding
conductor and his orchestra who
purchased their recordings of Symphonies
Nos.2 and 3 (both reviewed
here) will no doubt want this
album to complete the set.
The Symphonic
Dances, in an edition edited
by Wilson, was the Russian's last
major work, originally written
for two pianos in 1940, three
years before his death in Beverly
Hills, California. It is a
variously styled composition
that, for example, includes the
use of an alto saxophone in the
opening dance and his favourite
ecclesiastical chants elsewhere.
It was dedicated to the
marvellous Hungarian-born
conductor, Eugene Ormandy, who
premiered the composer's later
works with the renowned
Philadelphia Orchestra and whose
recordings have been the
benchmark for the symphonies
– until now, perhaps?
Footnote: It is
reported that Moscow’s
Rachmaninoff Museum with Concert
Hall, only established in 2023,
is looking for a new home, having
been shut down as the city's
authorities reclaimed the
building housing it after the
museum's lease expired.
©
Peter Burt, May 2025
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