CD REVIEW – RACHMANINOFF
SYMPHONY No.3, etc.
Sinfonia of London
John Wilson
CHANDOS CHSA 5297 [67:14]

Two of the winners of this year's Gramophone awards are Chandos for 'Label of the Year' and John Wilson with the Chandos production team for 'Spatial Audio' (Ravel on CHSA5280). They come together again with this release – the first in what I believe is to be a series.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) is remembered chiefly as a composer, but during his lifetime he was renowned as a virtuoso pianist. He was also a successful conductor, especially of opera. He went into permanent exile after the Russian revolution of 1917 and died in Beverly Hills, California.

Apart from the lovely Vocalise (5:22), the other two works here – Symphony No.3 and The Isle of the Dead – as well as being "heavy" are not among those regarded as his very best compositions, and obviously will not have the same appeal to light music devotees as did the last two SoL/Wilson albums: 'John Ireland' and 'Hollywood Soundstage', the latter at the time of writing coming second only to Einaudi at the top of the Gramophone best seller chart.

Tunes do break out, especially in the symphony, and I rather enjoyed it. The recording is certain to receive well-deserved plaudits for the quality of the orchestral playing and that man wielding the baton, together with the legendary Chandos sound. Rachmaninoff admirers and JW completists will not want to miss adding these versions to their collections.

This is yet another of the London recordings made in August and September 2021, with 23-year-old Charlie Lovell-Jones as leader due to the unfortunate sojourn in Oz of Andrew Haveron.

© Peter Burt 2022