London Philharmonic Orchestra - Rachmaninov: Les Cloches & Danses symphoniques [2 LP]

This double LP pairs Rachmaninov's last completed work with the choral symphony he considered his best, both performed by the London Philharmonic under Edward Gardner.

The Symphonic Dances were one of the first four recordings released by the LPO on its own label. Returning there for the twentieth anniversary of the label therefore presents a beautiful symmetry. This performance was recorded in 2023, with Gardner, the orchestra's principal conductor, highlighting the work's strange restlessness. Rachmaninov wrote it in 1940, while he was exiled in the United States, knowing that he was at the end of his career, and it remains the most nervous and modern music he produced.

The Bells dates from 1913 and comes from a very different man, written at the height of his power on Poe's poem, filtered through Balmont's Russian. Four movements trace a life through the bells that mark it: the silver sleigh bells at the beginning, the golden wedding bells, then the bronze alarm bells, and finally the iron funeral bells. Dies Irae, the Gregorian chant that Rachmaninov obsessed over his entire life, runs through both works, emerging in the finale of the Dances like death arriving on time.

Twenty-seven years separate the two pieces, and hearing them together on the same set makes the common thread impossible to miss.