Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphonies & Orchestral Music (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Lan Shui - Rachmaninoff: Symphonies & Orchestral Music (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Sergei Rachmaninov was one of the twentieth century’s outstanding pianists, but the large body of purely orchestral music he composed is no less an expression of his musical character. His great strength was that he managed to preserve intact a vision he had discovered very early in life. This contemporary of Schönberg, Scriabin, Ravel and Ives was unconcerned with musical fashions and had no wish to be a pioneer. Instead, and over a period of half a century he refined and deepened a language which derived naturally from his late-nineteenth-century Russian background.

With this set, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Lan Shui present a comprehensive collection of Rachmaninov’s music for orchestra – from the Scherzo in D minor, his first surviving piece for orchestra, completed just before his fifteenth birthday to the canonical works: the Symphonies and the Symphonic Dances. The recordings were made between 2008 and 2015, with the three symphonies previously released on separate albums.

But there is much more to Rachmaninov’s orchestral music besides the symphonies, and this box offers the listener opportunity to explore the young composer’s fascination with Gypsy themes (in the excerpts from the opera Aleko and Capriccio bohémien) as well as his lifelong preoccupation with death, in the form of the four notes of the “Dies irae” plainchant motif. This is heard again and again in Rachmaninov’s music, up until his very last work, the Symphonic Dances, where, at the very end of the third and final dance, this symbol of death is finally laid to rest.

Tracklist:

01. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13: I. Grave – Allegro ma non troppo (14:43)
02. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13: II. Allegro animato (08:46)
03. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13: III. Larghetto (09:47)
04. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13: IV. Allegro con fuoco (12:34)
05. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony in D Minor “Youth” (14:31)
06. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Prince Rostislav (14:46)
07. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27: I. Largo – Allegro moderato (22:23)
08. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27: II. Allegro molto (09:55)
09. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27: III. Adagio (14:50)
10. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27: IV. Allegro vivace (14:29)
11. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 (Version for Orchestra) (06:10)
12. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44: I. Lento – Allegro moderato (18:10)
13. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44: II. Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro vivace (12:26)
14. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44: III. Allegro (14:19)
15. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: I. Non allegro (11:56)
16. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: II. Andante con moto. Tempo di valse (10:39)
17. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: III. Lento assai – Allegro vivace (14:22)
18. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: The Rock, Op. 7 (Version for Orchestra) (14:38)
19. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Aleko (Excerpts): Introduction (02:27)
20. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Aleko (Excerpts): Men’s Dance (04:23)
21. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Aleko (Excerpts): Intermezzo (02:54)
22. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Aleko (Excerpts): Women’s Dance (05:12)
23. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Capriccio on Gypsy Themes, Op. 12 (Version for Orchestra) (18:40)
24. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Scherzo in D Minor (04:54)
25. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: The Miserly Knight, Op. 24: Prelude (06:44)
26. Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lan Shui – Rachmaninoff: Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 (20:17)