Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss Jansons) (SACD, RCO)

The RCO’s performance history of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony is strangely uneven. Already three years after its completion the symphony was performed by Willem Mengelberg in a programme that also boasted the composer as soloist in his own Piano Concerto No. 3. After that the symphony was performed again in 1921 and then there’s a gap of 59 years. From 1980 on no less than 10 conductors (including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Kirill Kondrashin and Kurt Sanderling) put it on the RCO’s music stands.