Mariss Jansons - Rachmaninov: Symphonies 1-3 (2007)

Rachmaninov symphonies come in different flavors depending on who interprets them. Eugene Ormandy's with the Philadelphia Orchestra made them sumptuous; Svetlanov and the USSR Symphony Orchestra made them lubricious. Here, Mariss Jansons and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic offer a lean, mean, tight, and tough approach to Rachmaninov's scores on EMI.
For Jansons, Rachmaninov is no decadent late Romantic; instead, he is a hard-muscled, clear-eyed proto-Modernist, and his orchestral works are far less contemporaries of Scriabin than they are forerunners of the sarcastic Shostakovich. With the rich, deep, and powerful playing of the St. Petersburg, Jansons' First is driven, his Second incredibly taut, and his Third almost unbelievably propulsive. As fillers, EMI includes Jansons' razor-sharp Isle of the Dead, his brilliant but evasive Symphonic Dances, and his understandably Mendelssohnian Scherzo -- the early work was clearly modeled on the German master's elfin Scherzo style. Also included is an incomprehensibly dry-eyed Vocalise -- if any string orchestra work deserved the Wall of Strings sound, it's the Vocalise. Recorded in crisp, colorful digital sound, these recordings will not please everyone, but Rachmaninov fans looking for something different might want to try them.