The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Kirill Petrenko - Rachmaninoff 150 - Music box, February 12th and 19th, 2024

An exceptional album has been released by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Kirill Petrenko, on February 9thvia the orchestra's record label. It is a tribute to the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who was celebrated in 2023 on the 150th anniversary of his birth, as well as a gesture of appreciation to Kirill Petrenko, the orchestra's music director since 2019, for whom Rachmaninoff's music holds great significance, being intrinsically linked to his cultural heritage. Kirill Petrenko was born in Omsk, in the former Soviet Union, and received his musical training in the spirit of Russian culture. Immediately after the opening of the USSR's borders, the young Petrenko, then 18 years old, emigrated to Austria, where he eventually became an Austrian citizen.

Featured on this disc: Sergei Rachmaninoff's symphonic poem "The Isle of the Dead," recorded on January 16th, 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The album booklet offers insights into the meaning of this period, especially for the artists, through photographs by Thomas Struth depicting winter landscapes, evoking feelings of solitude and isolation.

On June 25th, 2022, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Kirill Petrenko, delivered their annual open-air concert at Berlin's Waldbühne, an event broadcast liveby RadioRomâniaMuzical. The soloist was pianist Kirill Gerstein, who gave a remarkable interpretation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, stepping in at the last moment for Daniil Trifonov. This recording, now included on this album, sets a new benchmark for one of the most widely performed piano and orchestra works of our time. Like Petrenko, Kirill Gerstein hails from the former Soviet Union but studied in the United States and is now based in Berlin. For nearly 25 years, since his spectacular debut at 20 with the ZurichTonhalle Orchestra, Gerstein has been a favorite on international stages.He is a musician of exceptional expressive power who effortlessly navigates the complexities of Rachmaninoff's score, offering a performanceof Piano Concerto No. 2 that is both powerful and poetic.

Sergei Rachmaninoff's final major work was the Three Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, completed in 1940. In 1941, he wrote a little-known piano paraphrase based on Tchaikovsky, but his creative output ceased after that, with Rachmaninov passing away on March 28th, 1943.

The Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, reflectRachmaninoff's entire life-from Dies Irae, a medieval motif that you may have already recognized in the symphonic poem "Isle of the Dead" (written in 1890 when Rachmaninoffwas only 17 years old), which runs like a red thread throughout Rachmaninoff's entire oeuvre, tohis experience of exile, the influence of American jazz, and Russian nostalgia. All of these are vividly present in thebrilliant performance by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kirill Petrenko, on February 15th, 2020. There is, I believe, a heightened sense of nostalgia, which Petrenko, deeply understanding the experience of a Russian exile composing his last masterpiece during World War II in a new country so culturally differentfrom his homeland, brings to life.

The highlight of this outstanding recording is Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2. This is the work with which Kirill Petrenko, the current chief conductor, made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in February 2006; an intense and unforgettable collaboration that ultimatelyled to one of the great achievements of the Russian-Austrian conductor-the position of chief conductor of the orchestra considered by many to be the best in the world, or at least one of the best.

Without a doubt, Kirill Petrenko has Sergei Rachmaninoff's music in his DNA: through his Russian ancestry,a shared fate linked to exile from their homeland, and his deeply committed and, one might say, selfless way of serving the music.

Many were probably surprised whenthe members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra announced in 2015 that,after Simon Rattle's tenure, the position of chief conductor would be filled by Kirill Petrenko,who had made a name for himself primarily as the music director of various opera houses-not necessarily the most prominent ones-in Austria and Germany.Petrenko assumed his duties as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2019 and has remained true to himself, prioritizing music over personal fame. He continues to behave like an anti-star, which is, of course, very unusual at a time when personal branding seemsso crucial. In addition, the orchestra musicians love him because he knows how to bring new and fresh perspectives to piecesthey have performed countless times before. Petrenko knows how to elevate something very good into something extraordinarywhile staying true to the score: this was the impression I had while listening to Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, recorded on March 20th, 2021.