Release Date: 10 January 2015
Label: Chandos
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 095115188224
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: Rachmaninoff
Description
After more than twenty years since their last recording of piano duets on Chandos, Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier here come together again to perform works by Rachmaninoff. The Symphonic Dances was the last work to which Rachmaninoff gave an opus number, and he arranged it himself for two pianos. He was separated from his native Russia, where the Soviets had banned his music. In this work he thinks beyond himself as a Russian and, as in the Suite, Op. 17, into the world to come. In both works, amidst a gallery of musical references and quotations, he juxtaposes passages of his own music (from the First and Third Symphonies, The Bells, the Vespers, etc.) with music by composers he particularly admired (such as Richard Strauss, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Schubert). The combination of material may be seen as his exhibition of the nineteenth-century musical world. The album also features the Fantaisie (or Suite) for two pianos, Op. 5, in which poetic fragments in the score reveals that each movement for Rachmaninoff carried a world of secreted meaning.
Tracklisting
Jonathan Aasgaard; Sinfonia of London; John Wilson
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; Halle Choir; John Storgards
Janacek:Martinu:Haas
Palm Court Theatre Order
Sydney So:Pikler
Sara Dowling; Aquarelle Guitar Quartet
Dame Sarah Connolly; Joseph Middleton
James Ehnes; BBC Philharmonic; Juanjo Mena
Diego Caicedo
Diego Caicedo
Anna Netrebko; Yusiv Eyvazov; Sonya Yoncheva; Vittorio Grigolo; Roman Burdenko; Ferruccio Furlanett
Caitriona O'Leary; Boris Bergmann
Zuzana Ferjencikova
Zuzana Ferjencikova
Yajie Zhang; Narine Yeghiyan; Chor und Orchester der Berliner Operngruppe; Felix Krieger
Vincent Larderet
