Ode1249: Sergei Rachmaninov_ Monna Vanna & Songs

NEW RELEASE INFORMATION

SERGEI RACHMANINOV: MONNA VANNA & SONGS MOSCOW CONSERVATORY SO & STUDENTS CHOIR & SOLOISTS

SOILE ISOKOSKI · VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873–1943) Monna Vanna, Act I (Unfinished Opera) [1] I. Introduction [2] II. Scene I [3] III. Scene II [4] IV. Scene III (orchestrated by Gennadi Belov)

Songs [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

By my window (U moyego okna), Op. 26/10 Sad night (Noch’ pechal’na), Op. 26/12 The lilacs (Siren’), Op. 21/5 The rat-catcher (Krysolov), Op. 38/4 Vocalise, Op. 34/14 How nice this place is (Zdes’ khorosho), Op. 21/7 Dream (Son), Op. 38/5

Moscow Conservatory Opera Soloists, Moscow Conservatory Students Choir and Symphony Orchestra

SOILE ISOKOSKI, soprano VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY, conductor & piano

CD [57’17] · Full price CD LPN: ONDINE ODE 1249-2 EAN: 0761195124925 STREET DATE: July 8, 2014

• Ondine releases a new recording of Sergei Rachmaninov’s (1873-1943) rarely heard unfinished opera Monna Vanna. In this recording the opera is performed on a newer edition by Gennadi Belov and conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, an iconic artist for many decades and an expert in Russian music.

• Second part of this disc consists of seven songs by Rachmaninov (including the hauntingly beautiful Vocalise), featuring, as Ashkenazy’s personal wish, the Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski accompanied on the piano by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

• Rachmaninov wrote the 1st Act of his Monna Vanna opera in 1907 while writing some of his major works: the Symphony No. 2 and Piano Sonata No. 1. It was the only major score that the composer took with him into his exile in the USA after the 1917 revolution. However, Rachmaninov never completed the work and upon

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NEW RELEASE INFORMATION his death the opera fragment fell into oblivion. The work was finally premiered in New York in 1984.

• The opera, based upon a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, is performed in the recording by the Moscow Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, Students Choir and Opera Soloists. This is a premiere recording of the opera sung in Russian, the language in which Rachmaninov intended it to be performed.

ALSO AVAILABLE Dmitri Shostakovich: The Execution of Stepan Razin, Zoya Suite, Suite on Finnish Themes Shenyang, Mari Palo, Tuomas Katajala, State Choir Latvija, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy ODE 1225-2 · 0761195122525 Héctor Berlioz: Harold in Italy / Niccólo Paganini: Sonata per la Gran Viola e Orchestra David Aaron Carpenter, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy ODE 1188-2 · 0761195118825 Josef Suk: Asrael Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy ODE 1132-5 · 0761195113257 Einojuhani Rautavaara: Piano Concerto No. 3 (Gift of Dreams), Autumn Gardens Vladimir Ashkenazy, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy ODE 950-2 · 0761195095027

BIOGRAPHIES SOILE ISOKOSKI Soile Isokoski is recognized as one of the world’s finest lyric sopranos and regularly appears on the most renowned stages. After graduating from the Sibelius Academy, she gave her début recital in Helsinki in 1986 and subsequently won a number of important international singing competitions.

She made her début at the Finnish National Opera as Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème and has since delighted audiences and critics alike at opera houses in Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, London, Milan, Paris, and New York, and at the festivals of Salzburg, Savonlinna, Edinburgh, and Orange. Soile Isokoski has worked with numerous distinguished conductors such as Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa- Pekka Salonen, Mikko Franck, Seiji Ozawa, John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, ODE 1249-2

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NEW RELEASE INFORMATION Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Bernhard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, and James Levine. She has an extensive concert repertoire, and she regularly gives recitals with her permanent accompanist Marita Viitasalo.

Soile Isokoski’s award-winning recordings for Ondine include Sibelius’s Luonnotar and other orchestral songs by Jean Sibelius, with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra under Leif Segerstam (2007 BBC Music Magazine Award ‘Disc of the Year’ and MIDEM Classical Award), and Four Last Songs and other orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Marek Janowski (2002 Gramophone Award). In honour of her notable contribution to Finnish music, Soile Isokoski was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal in 2002. In 2008, she received in Vienna the honorary title of “Österreichische Kammersängerin”.

VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY One of the few artists to have combined a successful career as a pianist and conductor, Russian born Vladimir Ashkenazy first came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw and as first prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1956. Since then he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most renowned and revered pianists of our times, but as an artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities and continues to offer inspiration to music-lovers worldwide.

Conducting has formed the largest part of his activities for the past 20 years. He is currently Music Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra. He has also previously held posts as Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor of both the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Music Director of NHK Symphony Orchestra. Ashkenazy maintains strong links with a number of other major orchestras with whom he has built special relationships over the years including The Cleveland Orchestra (of whom he was formerly Principal Guest Conductor), San Francisco Symphony and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as making guest appearances with many other major orchestras and ensembles around the world.

Vladimir Ashkenazy has built an extraordinarily comprehensive recording catalogue and is featured on several Ondine releases; he has recorded Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” and works by Richard Strauss with the Czech Philharmonic as well as Bruckner’s Symphony in F minor with the DSO Berlin. Recordings with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra include Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, Josef Suk’s Asrael Symphony and Rautavaara’s Third Piano Concerto “Gift of Dreams”, commissioned by Ashkenazy as a concerto which he could conduct from the piano.

August 2013 also saw the releaseof a disc featuring Shostakovich’s The Execution of Stepan Razin, Zoya Suite and Suite on Finnish Themes. www.vladimirashkenazy.com

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