Find music by

Sign up for our newsletter




Rachmaninov – Symphony No.2

Composers
Genres
Orchestras / Ensembles
Conductors
Label
Catalogue numberBIS-2071 SACD
Release date2015-09-10
Discs1
Orig. sample rate96000Hz
Total time70:54

Since his appointment as chief conductor and later music director in 2003, Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra have richly proven a particular affinity for Russian repertoire, both on their numerous tours and in recording. Works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Medtner and Scriabin have featured on discs which have been welcomed by the international music press with distinctions such as Editor's Choice (Gramophone), Disc of the Month (Classic FM Magazine and ClassicsToday.com), Empfohlen (Klassik-Heute.de) and IRR Outstanding (International Record Review). As Litton now steps down from his post with the Bergen orchestra, the team marks the event with their rendition of Sergei Rachmaninov's gigantic Second Symphony, with its playing time of 60+ minutes as broad and expansive as the Russian steppes. The work followed upon a first symphony which in 1897 had had a disastrous reception, and it took the intensely self-critical Rachmaninov ten years before making another attempt at the genre. Fortunately the first performance of the work in 1908 was a complete success, the broad melodic gestures and the arduous journey from the brooding melancholy of the symphony’s introduction to the triumphant liberation at its close speaking directly to the St Petersburg audience. Later criticism of the symphony’s broad scale prompted Rachmaninov to sanction several cuts, however, and it was only in the mid-1960s that it became common practice to perform the symphony complete – as in the present recording. Rachmaninov is joined on the disc by his older colleague Anatoly Liadov, whose brief and shimmering tone poem The Enchanted Lake provides an atmospheric ending to the recording – in the words of Liadov himself an image of nature, as ‘fantastic as a fairy tale’, in which the listener will feel ‘the change of the colours, the chiaroscuro, the incessantly changeable stillness…’
 
  • STUDIO QUALITY
    File formats included in STUDIO QUALITY
    • FLAC 24-bit Stereo
    • FLAC 24-bit Surround 5.0
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
  • CD QUALITY | MP3
    File formats included in CD QUALITY | MP3
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
$ 16.71
 
Extra material for download
 
 
  Composer: Rachmaninov, Sergei
  Symphony No.2 in E minor, Op.27 (1906–07) 62:52
01 I. Largo – Allegro moderato 23:07 $ 5.55 USD
02 II. Allegro molto 10:15 $ 2.46 USD
03 III. Adagio 15:15 $ 3.66 USD
04 IV. Allegro vivace 14:15 $ 3.42 USD
 
 
  Composer: Liadov, Anatol Konstantinovich
05 The Enchanted Lake, Op.62 (1909) 06:45 $ 1.62 USD
 
  Album total 70:54
ComposerLiadov, Anatol Konstantinovich
Rachmaninov, Sergei
ConductorLitton, Andrew
OrchestraBergen Philharmonic Orchestra

Daily Deal
Top downloads
eClassical.com is a completely virtual record label and a secure online store open 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Customers and visitors can download classical music in high quality FLAC or MP3 and find out more about classical music.

Start page    24 Bit FAQ    Assistance    About eClassical    Classical News