Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 3 & Ravel: La Valse

Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 & Ravel: La Valse performed by the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Liss.  Exclusively Available in Stereo DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128 and DSD 64 at NativeDSD. “An exile deprived of his musical roots, traditions and native land has no desire to create, and has no consolation other than the inviolate silence of unvexed reminiscence,” said Rachmaninov in an interview in 1934. After emigration, his creative work came to a standstill that lasted for nine years; even after recovery, it could and did not progress with the same intensity. During the twenty-five years that he lived abroad (1918-1943), he composed only six works, out of a lifetime total of forty-five. He intended to express himself completely in each of those compositions, and to create a major work that would become his final one. As fate would have it, his penultimate work was to be the Third Symphony. The symphony consists of three movements instead of the traditional four, although the second movement combines the functions of a lyrical core and a scherzo. Like Rachmaninov’s first two symphonies, the Third is monothematic. Its leitmotif is an austerely archaic melodic idiom, which had undoubtedly originated in the Old Russian znamenny chant. It sounds as a prophetic voice coming from the mists of antiquity, a theme of the fate of Russia that is interrupted by orchestral outcries even in the introduction. These opposites will continue through the entire course of the work, where the meditative character of the narrator will repeatedly give way to an acutely expressive report of the hero. The melodious motto of the first movement — with a characteristic inner voice in the form of the cuckoo’s call of a minor third — originates from a drawn-out chant and a lullaby, while the spirit of solemn songs of glory characterizes the second theme. This immediately conjures images of elegiac sadness and of springtime flood of feelings.

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Ural Philharmonic Orchestra Dmitry Liss, Conductor