Sergei Rachmaninoff’s music for piano and orchestra is easy to love. Its lyrical romanticism and connections with successors that lead even to jazz piano tend to be accessible to contemporary listeners. It is some of the most stirring music ever written, though it does not earn the respect of work written by canonical masters of the genre like Mozart and Beethoven.
When you pair this music with Edo de Waart’s baton (now in Hong Kong), Rafael Orozco’s keyboard, and the always dependable Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, you’ve got a situation where artistic ripe fruit is hanging low for the picking.
After you’ve loved this double CD recording to death, make it a project to introduce someone who needs orchestral music in her life but doesn’t see it yet. Rachmaninoff might just be the doorway.
Lovely, lovely music, perhaps even for hearts worn flat by pop culture’s single track.
Canter Bridge 
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