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Munich Philharmonic: RachmaninoffLorenzo Viotti (conductor)

The conductor Lorenzo Viotti smiles frontally into the camera and leans against a shiny metallic wall that reflects his shadow.
Copyright: Danielle Van Coevorden

Conducted by Lorenzo Viotti, this programme presents two of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s masterpieces that the composer himself counted among his most successful works.

Conducted by Lorenzo Viotti, this programme presents two of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s masterpieces that the composer himself counted among his most successful works.

  • Marina Rebeka, soprano
  • Andrew Staples, tenor
  • Albert Dohmen, baritone
  • Munich Philharmonic Choir; Andreas Herrmann, rehearsal
  • Munich Philharmonic
  • Lorenzo Viotti, conductor

The Symphonic Dances are the last composition that Rachmaninoff completed – his compositional swan song, so to speak – and in which he takes stock of his life’s work. With quotations and mood analogies, Rachmaninoff looks back on his own works and on motifs that influenced him. Thirty years earlier, he composed his monumental choral symphony The Bells, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name. It depicts the sounds of sleigh, wedding, fire and death bells, each bell representing a stage in a person’s life. Rachmaninoff skilfully avoided imitating the sound of bells onomatopoeically with glockenspiels and other percussion instruments, instead letting the choir, vocal soloists and orchestra make the bells ring out.

Programme

  • Sergei Rachmaninoff:
    “Symphonic Dances”, Op 45
    “The Bells” for soloists, choir and orchestra, Op 35

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