Rachmaninov's Rock

Started by vandermolen, April 22, 2015, 01:36:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

vandermolen

In the list of national threads there is a Rachmaninov one but when I clicked on it I received a message saying that it was either 'missing' or 'off limits to me'. So, if you have come across a missing Rachmaninov thread please report it to the appropriate authorities. There is another piano music thread but this is not what I wanted to communicate about.
Anyway, I wanted to say how much I enjoyed a very interesting disc on a Chandos of Valeri Polyansky conducting Rachmaninov tone poems. It is unusual to see them all gathered together on one disc and I found it to be very atmospheric and evocative listening and enjoyed it all. I never realised that the fine tone poem 'The Rock' or 'The Crag' was based on a Checkov short story ('On the Road') which the evocative cover image also alludes to. Apart from the well-known 'Isle of the Dead' the CD features 'The Rock', 'Prince Rostilav' which I thoroughly enjoyed, having never heard before, Caprice Bohemien and the 'Scherzo'; most of these work demonstrate characteristic gloom and melancholy which I find greatly appealing. All in all a very atmospheric and beautifully performed and recorded CD which I would thoroughly recommend. There is a lot of snobbish condescension in relation to Rachmaninov but he was a fine composer:
[asin]B0000AW0XL[/asin]
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

North Star

It sure has been an uneventful year in the thread: Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

vandermolen

Quote from: North Star on April 22, 2015, 01:40:08 PM
It sure has been an uneventful year in the thread: Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Thanks. Odd that it did not come up on the list of threads. Have now transferred my comments to it so perhaps one of the moderators would kindly delete this thread.  ::)
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).