Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff: Newly Discovered Recording
Rachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances: Newly Discovered 1940 Recording is a three-CD set which highlights Sergei Rachmaninoff at the piano playing his Symphonic Dances .
At a private gathering with conductor Eugene Ormandy, Rachmaninoff demonstrated just how he wanted his new orchestral work Symphonic Dances to be performed, playing a single-piano reduction of the score for a single piano while singing and given spoken commentary to Ormandy, to whom the work was dedicated and who would premiere it two weeks later.
The recently discovered recording of Rachmaninoff at the keyboard is presented twice in this set: first edited to conform to the score, and again just as the occasion unfolded, with Rachmaninoff jumping from place to place as he demonstrates, comments, and sings. The playing throughout is absolutely phenomenal - some of the greatest, if not *the* greatest, that exists of Rachmaninoff on record.
Additional performances of Rachmaninoff’s works are also included, and the voluminous booklet includes an insightful essay by Richard Taruskin, author of the Oxford History of Western Music. Further essays include A Musician’s Reaction, in which Jorge Bolet’s pupil Ira Levin discusses this performance in the context of live vs. studio recordings, and a lengthy Note From the Producers about the recordings in this volume.
Other performers whom Rachmaninoff admired are included in this set: pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch in his stupendous 1946 BBC broadcast of the Paganini Rhapsody (from newly obtained source material in superb sound), mezzo soprano Nadezhda Plevitskaya, and conductors Adrian Boult, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Eugene Ormandy, and Leopold Stokowski.
Every known non-commercial recording of Rachmaninoff, including the important Bell Laboratories recording (a six-minute excerpt) of Rachmaninoff playing during a 1931 recital, is also featured - the 1931 performance featuring excerpts of Ballades by Brahms and Liszt that are absolutely mesmerizing.
“It is with tremendous pride that I release Rachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances. I feel this is one of the most important achievements of my career.”
- Ward Marston
Producers: Gregor Benko, Francis Crociata, Scott Kessler, and Ward Marston.
Recording discovered in the Eugene Ormandy Collection by Jay Reise.
This video edited and produced by Mark Ainley of The Piano Files.
2 views
1361
457
8 months ago 03:37:31 1
The Best of Rachmaninoff
8 months ago 05:42:18 1
Choral Classics from Cambridge
8 months ago 00:01:42 1
Самая русская мелодия музыка Рахманинов 3 концерт Horowitz Rachmaninov 3 Concert Most Russian Melody
8 months ago 00:15:33 2
Yakov Flier plays Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no. 3 - 1966
8 months ago 00:31:17 1
Rachmaninoff plays Piano Concerto 2
8 months ago 00:40:14 1
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 | Khatia Buniatishvili, Neeme Järvi, Verbier Festival
8 months ago 00:03:03 1
Victor Merzhanov plays Rachmaninoff Musical Moment no. 4 - video
8 months ago 02:35:00 1
Mikhail Pletnev plays Rachmaninoff - The 4 Piano Concertos (Jūrmala, 2023)
8 months ago 00:04:40 1
Melodie in E Major Op 3 No 3 - Sergei Rachmaninoff
8 months ago 00:02:41 1
Rachmaninoff plays Etude Tableau in A Minor Op. 39 No. 6
8 months ago 00:13:09 1
Heinrich Neuhaus plays Rachmaninoff
8 months ago 00:25:17 1
Vladimir Ashkenazy plays Rachmaninoff Etudes-Tableaux op. 39 - live video
8 months ago 00:03:14 1
Rachmaninoff plays Tchaikovsky - Waltz In A Flat, Op. 40, No. 8
8 months ago 00:03:36 1
Gluck - Melody (plays S. Rachmaninoff)
8 months ago 02:09:51 1
Stradella: Italian Arias
8 months ago 02:06:02 1
J.S. Bach: French Suites
8 months ago 00:03:14 1
Rachmaninoff plays Serenade Op. 3 No. 5
8 months ago 01:01:41 1
Takemitsu: Complete Works for Piano
8 months ago 00:19:28 1
Mikhail Pletnev plays Rachmaninoff - Corelli Variations (Moscow, 2001)