London Philharmonic Orchestra - Rachmaninov: The Bells & Symphonic Dances [2LP]

This 2LP pairs Rachmaninov's last completed work with the choral symphony he considered his finest, both in the hands of the London Philharmonic under Edward Gardner.

Symphonic Dances was one of the first four records the LPO ever put out on its own label, so returning to it for the label's twentieth anniversary has a pleasing symmetry. This performance was captured in 2023, with Gardner, the orchestra's principal conductor, drawing out the piece's strange restlessness. Rachmaninov wrote it in 1940 in American exile, knowing it was late in the day, and it remains the most nervous, most modern-sounding music he produced.

The Bells comes from 1913 and a very different man, written at the height of his powers on Poe's poem, filtered through Balmont's Russian. Four movements track a life through the bells that mark it: silver sleigh bells at the start, golden wedding bells, then brazen alarm bells, and finally the iron bells of the funeral. Threaded through both works is the Dies Irae, the plainchant Rachmaninov circled obsessively his whole life, surfacing in the finale of the Dances as death arriving on schedule.

Twenty-seven years separate the two pieces, and hearing them together on one set makes the through-line impossible to miss.