St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Lenard Slatkin - Sergey Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 1 & Prince Rostislav

The premiere of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 1 in D minor was a notorious failure. It took until the 1940s for the work to gain recognition, and it contains much that is recognisable from the composer's later works - brooding intensity, lyricism and yearning, orchestral colour and grandeur, written in a profoundly Russian manner. Unperformed during his lifetime, Prince Rostislav exudes Rachmaninov's familiar qualities of melancholy and voluptuousness; and both works feature his pervasive use of the Dies irae theme. These acclaimed VOX recordings conducted by Leonard Slatkin were originally issued in 1977 and 1982.