Bells 1997Royal Scottish National Orchestra
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Rachmaninov's superb choral symphony was unknown in Scotland until André Previn conducted it at the 1975 Edinburgh Festival. Since then it had been performed by the SNO under Neeme Järvi, when a recording was made. Many members of the RSNO and chorus will no doubt have been on the scene then, so the work was gradually becoming more familiar.
At this point, with Alexander Lazarev about to take up his appointment as the RSNO's Principal Conductor, he brought in three soloists from the Bolshoi, who had accompanied him to the Edinburgh Festival in 1991, all taking leading roles in Eugene Onegin. Alone of the three, Vladimir Redkin had also appeared with Scottish Opera in the intervening years, showing himself to be an excellent Verdi baritone, performing in Il trovatore and La forza del destino, with Aïda still to come.
The rest of the concert programme linked Rachmaninov to his Italian contemporary Ottorino Respighi. The first item was Respighi's orchestration of five of Rachmaninov's Etudes Tableaux. These were followed with an original composition by the Italian - the Trittico Botticelliano (Three Botticelli Pictures). A well-planned programme.
