Vasily Petrenko

Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – Rachmaninov: Symphony 3, Caprice Bohemien, Vocalese (2012) [Japan 2014]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 62:33 minutes | Basic Scans included | 2,54 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Basic Scans included | 2,48 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Basic Scans included | 608 MB
2014 | Warner Music Japan # WPCS-12886

If you regard Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony as a decadent, nostalgic remnant of Czarist Russia, then you really should hear this performance. The music couldn’t sound fresher, lighter, or more modern. It’s not that Vasily Petrenko slights those lush, romantic elements, but he certainly doesn’t dwell on them either. As for the rest of the disc, the presence of Vocalise was inevitable, but the Caprice bohémien is a delightful work, far too little known, and it’s as splendidly played as the symphony. EMI’s engineers do everyone proud. This is definitely a distinctive view of Rachmaninov, a breath of fresh air, and a nice complement to more traditional approaches.

The Symphony No. 3 is the most expressively Russian of Rachmaninov symphonies even though he wrote it at his house on Lake Lucerne; in fact his outlook remained quintessentially Russian wherever he was living. Caprice Bohémien is one of Rachmaninov’s earlier works, composed just before his First Symphony, and is a colourful fantasy on a gypsy theme. Much of the inspiration came from the composer’s one act opera Aleko, based on “The Gypsies” by Pushkin. Vocalise, confirming the popularity of the piece. There are many, many different arrangements of Rachmaninov’s melancholy work. Rachmaninov himself transcribed the piece for orchestra 3 years after he composed it.

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Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – Rachmaninov: Symphony 2 & Dances from Aleko (2012)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 72:57 minutes | Basic Scans included | 2,01 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Basic Scans included | 1,78 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Basic Scans included | 1,46 GB
2014 | Warner Music Japan # WPCS-12630

For the second installment of their Rachmaninoff symphonies cycle for EMI, Vasily Petrenko and his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cover the most popular and significant of the corpus, the Second Symphony in E minor. Also to the disc added the three delightful fragments from Rachmaninoff’s early opera Aleko (1892) – The Women’s Dance, Intermezzo and the Men’s Dance – are offered as appetizer.

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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko – Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 ‘Leningrad’ (2013/2015)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:19:07 minutes | 3,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: ProStudioMasters | Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD

Three weeks after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Shostakovich volunteered with the Home Guard in Leningrad. As the siege of the city intensified, he worked on his Seventh Symphony, completing three movements before being forced to leave Leningrad and travel east by train. The work was completed in December that year. Initially he gave each movement a programmatic title, but later withdrew them, leaving this epic work as an emblem of heroic defiance in the face of conflict and crisis: ‘I dedicate my Seventh Symphony to our struggle against fascism, to our coming victory over the enemy, to my native city, Leningrad.’ Shostakovich’s epic Seventh Symphony is a study in defiance and survival, written largely in the ruins of the besieged city in 1941. Its reputation has fluctuated over the years, with its immediate post war reputation largely low. But in recent years it has taken its rightful place in Shostakovich’s symphonic canon. As one of the Twentieth Century’s most recorded symphonists, the composer has been the subject of many recordings.

The award-winning Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra, dating from 1840. The dynamic young Russian, Vasily Petrenko was appointed Principal Conductor of the orchestra in September 2006 and in September 2009 became Chief Conductor.

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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko – Dmitry Shostakovich – Symphony No. 4 (2013/2016)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:04:52 minutes | 2,56 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD

Completed in 1936 but withdrawn during rehearsal and not performed until 1961, the searing Fourth Symphony finds Shostakovich stretching his musical idiom to the limit in the search for a personal means of expression at a time of undoubted personal and professional crisis. The opening movement, a complex and unpredictable take on sonata form that teems with a dazzling profusion of varied motifs, is followed by a short, eerie central movement. The finale opens with a funeral march leading to a climax of seismic physical force that gives way to a bleak and harrowing minor key coda. The Symphony has since become one of the most highly regarded of the composer’s large-scale works.

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Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko – Dmitry Shostakovich – Symphonies Nos. 2 & 15 (2012/2015)
DSF Stereo DSD64, 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:06:53 minutes | 2,64 GB | Genre: Classical
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:06:53 minutes | 1,18 GB
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD | Naxos

This album was mastered using 2xHD’s proprietary system. In order to achieve the most accurate reproduction of the original recording they tailor their process specifically for each project, using a selection from their pool of state-of-the-art audiophile components and connectors. The process begins with a transfer to analog from the original 96kHz/24-bit resolution master, using cutting edge D/A converters. The analog signal is then sent through a hi-end tube preamplifier before being recorded directly in DXD using the dCS905 A/D and the dCS Vivaldi Clock. All connections used in the process are made of OCC silver cable.

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