The quintessentially Russian melancholy of Rachmaninov’s third symphony was first heard in Britain in November 1937 when Sir Thomas Beecham conducted it with his new London Philharmonic. Today’s LPO plays the exiled composer’s 1939 revision in this live recording made at the Royal Festival Hall last year, Vladimir Jurowski drawing some delightfully seductive playing from the strings and woodwind. He adds an intriguing, though occasionally cloying, curio: his grandfather’s orchestral arrangement of 10 Rachmaninov songs, sung with crystal clarity by Vsevolod Grivnov, a comrade of Jurowski’s from the days of the conductor’s debut at Wexford in 1995.
