Album: Rachmaninov, Symphonic Dances / Vasily Petrenko (Avie)

At the age of 20, Rachmaninov impressed Tchaikovsky with his fantasy for orchestra, "The Rock", and presented the score to Rimsky-Korsakov.

It helped established his place among the pantheon of Russian composers, and in his last work, the "Symphonic Dances", he revisits some of its nationalist themes. Vasily Petrenko conducts the RPO on tremendous form in a precise and dramatic performance of both pieces, plus the tone poem "The Isle of the Dead". Worth it for the woodwind alone.