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8.111357 Rachmaninov conducts Rachmaninov Rachmaninov conducts Rachmaninov ADD 1 Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 18:09 Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 20th April, 1929 Matrix nos.: CVE-48973-5, 48974-4, 48975-4, 48976-5, 48977-4 First issued on Victor 7219 through 7221 in album M-75 Sergey

2 Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 (orch. Rachmaninov) 3:58 Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 20th April, 1929 RACHMANINOV Matrix no.: CVE-48978-3 First issued on Victor 7221 in album M-75

Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 37:10 Symphony No. 3 3 Lento; Allegro moderato 12:48 4 Adagio ma non troppo 11:48 5 Allegro 12:34 Isle of the Dead Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 11th December, 1939 Matrix nos.: CS-045636-2, 045637-1, 045638-2, 045639-1, 045640-2, 045641-1, 045642-1, 045643-1 and 045644-1 Vocalise First issued on Victor 17426 through 17430 in album M-712

The Philadelphia Orchestra • Sergey Rachmaninov

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

Producer’s Note

The present collection contains all of Sergey Rachmaninov’s recordings as conductor. The primary sources The Philadelphia Orchestra for the transfers were Victor “Z” pressings for Isle of the Dead and Vocalise, and pre-war Victor “Gold” label pressings for the symphony. Sergey Rachmaninov Mark Obert-Thorn (1929 and 1939 studio recordings) 8.111357 4 8.111357 bk Rachmaninov_EU 26-07-2010 18:04 Pagina 2

Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943) major works were composed on either side of the own conducting of it has its personal emphases and Russian Revolution divide. The Isle of the Dead (1909) impulses. The first movement includes a requested Symphony No. 3 ¥ Isle of the Dead ¥ Vocalise was inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting (of which repeat of the exposition (with lead-back bars), which the Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943) may well be its (or any other) kind. Following the Revolution (in Rachmaninov had seen a black-and-white print). The composer ignores, further intensifying the movement’s considered the last in the line of the great Romantic 1917) Rachmaninov left Russia with his family, first of composer leads neither a luxurious nor an inflated design and which gives an equal length to the three composer-performers, for he was not only a composer all for a concert-tour in Scandinavia, following which account of the music, but one that is graduated as a movements (the second combining a nostalgic slow of true distinction, creating lyrical and passionate the Rachmaninovs sailed for America and to exile from symphonic journey, one that reveals resourceful movement with a fantastical scherzo at its mid-point). music, full of moody character, which has long enjoyed his native country for the rest of his life. And it is in orchestration to complement a grim narrative of slowly The virtuoso playing of The Philadelphia Orchestra, in adulation and staying-power with the general music- America that we find the composer and conductor for undulating waves on which rows the boatman of death this the first recording of Symphony No. 3, made in loving public, but was also a commendable and the recordings on this release, all of those that he made in his unremitting journey. Musically, the main motif of 1939, suggests that Rachmaninov was a more than individual pianist (as his numerous recordings in this as a conductor, all with the great Philadelphia the Isle of the Dead alludes to the plainchant Dies irae competent maestro in music that has many technical rôle demonstrate) and an experienced conductor, Orchestra, with which he had a particularly productive (Day of Judgement), which was something of an idée demands, and that he was also unashamed by his own something less well-known maybe, for although his relationship brought about through his friendship with fixe in Rachmaninov’s music, the rhythms equating to music’s power, passion and beauty, but never indulging activity in this area is documented he left only the three the orchestra’s music directors of the time, respectively lapping waters and the rocking of the boat. The music it; indeed it often seems confidential. It is both a recordings to be found on this release. Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. evokes a shadowy, isolated scene, a journey from life to convincing and instructive performance of a very great Rachmaninov was born into a well-to-do family Rachmaninov was no stranger to making records; death, the boat as the conveyer between the two states, symphony, as well as a handsome document of the (his father a Captain in the Imperial Guard), but the indeed he made enough shellacs to fill ten CDs. The with music burdened by morbidity, but sometimes prowess of The Philadelphia Orchestra at this time, finances dwindled, and following his parents’ majority of these document his abilities as a pianist and relieved by sweet nostalgia, and developed and emerging out of the Stokowski era into the Ormandy separation, the young Rachmaninov settled with his an interpreter, not least of his own music – and include climaxed through impassioned outbursts, an amalgam one, the woodwinds characterful, the strings warm and mother in St Petersburg. This was in 1882. There invaluable versions of his four Piano Concertos and of lugubrious, death-burdened and railing emotions that shimmering. Rachmaninov had music lessons with his cousin, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, all with The seems deeply Slav and significant to Rachmaninov. Vocalise is the fourteenth and last in pianist Alexander Siloti (perhaps most famous, or Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted either by Stokowski The popularity of certain pieces of Rachmaninov’s Rachmaninov’s collection of songs that was published infamous, today for editing and heavily cutting or Ormandy, and including two versions of the Second oeuvre – Piano Concertos 2 and 3, Paganini Rhapsody, as Opus 34, a song without words, but not without a Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2). From St Piano Concerto, both with Stokowski, from 1924 and and Symphony No. 2 – tends to overshadow the stature vowel of the singer’s choice with which to sustain the Petersburg, in 1885 Rachmaninov travelled to Moscow the 1929. Stokowski also conducts the Paganini of the Fourth Piano Concerto, Symphonic Dances, and sad melody. Originally with piano accompaniment, to study with Nikolay Sverev and, in the following Rhapsody, while the other concertos are with Ormandy – as recorded here – Symphony No. 3, which was Rachmaninov made arrangements for orchestra (as year, he entered the Moscow Conservatory where he who took over the Philadelphian reins in 1936. Of other completed in 1936 for The Philadelphia Orchestra, heard in his own recording presented here) and for continued to study with Siloti and also Arensky and composers’ music, there are pieces by Chopin Leopold Stokowski conducting the première in soprano and orchestra. Once again the Philadelphian Taneyev. As a composer, Rachmaninov had already (including the B flat minor ‘funeral march’ Piano November that year. It is a masterpiece, one that finds strings find a beauty and sensitivity of response to break put himself on the map with the enduringly popular Sonata) and Schumann (Carnaval) and examples of the composer in leaner and more economic musical the hardest of hearts. Prelude in C sharp minor (the second of his Opus 3 Rachmaninov’s work with violinist Fritz Kreisler territory, yet with no lack of emotional fire and lyrical piano pieces). By contrast, his Symphony No. 1 (1895) (sonatas by Beethoven, Grieg and Schubert). beauty; and the orchestration is superb. Rachmaninov’s Colin Anderson received a critical and public mauling, maybe because Rachmaninov’s death in 1943 robbed us of his the first performance, conducted by the already less recording his final work, the Symphonic Dances, than sympathetic Alexander Glazunov (legend has it written for The Philadelphia Orchestra and Ormandy that he was also drunk), did a disservice to music that (which Ormandy would document, so wonderfully and Rachmaninov then wished to be suppressed, an definitively, in 1960), and with this orchestra and experience that was enough to put him off composing conductor Rachmaninov was scheduled to record for a while but which allowed him to focus on his Liszt’s Totentanz and Schumann’s Piano Concerto. activities as a pianist and as a conductor. In addition to his many recordings as a pianist, With the help of psychologist Nikolai Dahl, Rachmaninov also left us his conducting of three of his Rachmaninov regained confidence in his orchestral works – the Isle of the Dead, Vocalise, and compositional abilities and was able to write his Piano Symphony No. 3 – RCA originals on which the Concerto No. 2, now one of the most popular pieces of composer conducts The Philadelphia Orchestra. The 8.111357 23 8.111357 8.111357 bk Rachmaninov_EU 26-07-2010 18:04 Pagina 2

2 Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 (orch. Rachmaninov) 3:58 Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 20th April, 1929 RACHMANINOV Matrix no.: CVE-48978-3 First issued on Victor 7221 in album M-75

The Philadelphia Orchestra • Sergey Rachmaninov

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

Producer’s Note

CMYK NAXOS Historical 8.111357 Sergey Playing ADD RACHMANINOV Time

ൿ BROADCASTING ANDCOPYING OF THIS COMPACT DISC PROHIBITED. UNAUTHORISED PUBLICPERFORMANCE, TRANSLATIONS RESERVED. ALL RIGHTS IN THIS SOUND RECORDING, ARTWORK, TEXTS AND (1873-1943) 59:17 8.111357 & Ꭿ

2010 Naxos Rights International Ltd. 2010 Naxos RightsInternational The Philadelphia Orchestra Sergey Rachmaninov

One of the last great Romantic Rachmaninov conducts 1 Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 18:09 composer-performers, Sergey Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 20th April, 1929 Rachmaninov was also an experienced conductor, although he left only the three recordings to 2 Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 (orch. Rachmaninov) 3:58 be found on this album. The Isle of Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 20th April, 1929 the Dead charts a symphonic journey from life to death relieved by a feeling of sweet nostalgia. Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 37:10 Superbly orchestrated and with plenty of emotional fire and lyrical 3 Lento; Allegro moderato 12:48 beauty, his Third Symphony was 4 Adagio ma non troppo 11:48 composed for The Philadelphia 5 Allegro 12:34 Orchestra which responds brilliantly to the composer’s Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 11th December, 1939 personal emphases and impulses.

Rachmaninov conducts Rachmaninov conducts Rachmaninov The much-loved Vocalise is heard here in Rachmaninov’s own MADE IN The Philadelphia Orchestra • Sergey Rachmaninov GERMANY orchestral guise.

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

Cover Photograph: Sergey Rachmaninov (Private Collection) 8.111357