Four Centuries of Great Music June 21, 2025 More May New Releases Encore

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music is the second episode playing some music from new classical music albums released in the month ofMay.  There were a lot of new May releases.  We start with Rachmaninoff, his Symphony #1.   The premiere of this work, which took place in St. Petersburg on March 28, 1897, was an absolute disaster for reasons which included under-rehearsal and the poor performance by the possibly intoxicated conductor Alexander Glazunov. Rachmaninoff subsequently suffered a psychological collapse and stopped composing for years.  But did not destroy or attempt to disown the score.  It was left in Russia when he went into exile in 1917 and subsequently lost.   In 1944, after the composer's death, the separate instrumental parts of the symphony were discovered and were used to reconstruct the full score. Despite its poor initial reception, the symphony is now seen as a dynamic representation of the Russian symphonic tradition, with British composer Robert Simpson calling it "a powerful work in its own right, stemming from Borodin and Tchaikovsky, but convinced, individual, finely constructed, and achieving a genuinely tragic and heroic expression that stands far above the pathos of his later music.”

It is in 4 movements
Sergei Rachmaninoff:   Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 - I. Grave—Allegro non troppo
Sergei Rachmaninoff:   Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 - II. Allegro animato
Sergei Rachmaninoff:   Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 - III. Larghetto
Sergei Rachmaninoff:   Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 - IV. Allegro con fuoco

Sinfonia of London conducted by John Wilson
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 and Symphonic Dances
Chandos Records
May 25th release date


Vers la flamme, Op. 72        3:04

Fantaisie in B minor, Op. 28    10:11

As a substantial single sonata-form movement the Fantaisie in B minor, Op 28 (1900), bridges the gap between the Third and Fourth Sonatas and is a popular work with Russian pianists—Scriabin is central to the Russian repertoire—its existence was forgotten by the composer. When the pianist Sabaneiev started to play it on the piano in Scriabin’s Moscow flat, Scriabin called out from the next room, ‘Who wrote that? It sounds familiar.’ ‘Your Fantasy’, was the response. To which Scriabin is reported as saying ‘What Fantasy?’

The virtuosic style is close to that of the Third Sonata. The brooding opening gives way to one of Scriabin’s inspired, soaring and consoling second subjects whose flight is sustained for twenty-six bars. Noticeable here are the touches of canonic writing. The third theme is close in its massive confidence and chromatic harmony to the world of ‘The Divine Poem’—the Third Symphony, finished in 1904. The recapitulation is hugely expanded and rescored, so that the emotional line rides on through a long coda, a device used later in the Seventh Sonata.


Alexander Scriabin:  Nos 1, 2 & 3 from Preludes, Op. 16        5:56

Yevgeny Sudbin, piano
Scriabin: Vers la flamme
BIS Records
May 9th release date


The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, is a work for solo piano written by Johannes Brahms in 1861. It consists of a set of twenty-five variations and a concluding fugue, all based on a theme from George Frideric Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B♭ major, HWV 434. This work is quintessentially Brahms  and many writers describe the Handel Variations as "perhaps the finest set of piano variations since Beethoven", and Brahms’ biographer Jan Swafford wrote that this work is  "a masterful unfolding of ideas concluding with an exuberant fugue and with a finish designed to bring down the house.”

Johannes Brahms:  Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel    Op. 24
Sergio Fiorentino, piano
Sergio Fiorentino: The Legacy Vol.4
Brilliant Classics


Frederic Chopin: Piano Sonata No 3 in B minor, Op.58 - I. Allegro maestoso
Frederic Chopin: Piano Sonata No 3 in B minor, Op.58 - II. Scherzo. Molto vivace
Frederic Chopin: Piano Sonata No 3 in B minor, Op.58 - III. Largo
Frederic Chopin: Piano Sonata No 3 in B minor, Op.58 - IV. Finale. Presto non tanto
Benjamin Grosvenor -Chopin Sonatas (5-23-25)
Benjamin Grovsenor - Chopin Sonatas 2 & 3, Ballade No.1, Berceuse, Nocturnes
Decca Classics
May 23rd release date

The Third Sonata, written at the height of Chopin’s career in 1844, blends dazzling piano technique with beautiful, flowing melodies, showing the composer at his most refined and expressive.