On September 4, Marston Records will release a newly rediscovered document of Sergei Rachmaninoff performing his “Symphonic Dances.”

The work is heard in a reduction for solo piano, with the composer himself going over the score with Eugene Ormandy, who conducted its premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The recording includes audio of the pianist speaking and singing his instructions. The Marston release will also feature a meticulously edited version, with Rachmaninoff playing through 2/3 of the score without interruption.

Any unknown audio of Rachmaninoff at the keyboard is a major discovery, and to hear him play, as might a fly on the wall, outside of a commercial setting, is extremely rare. The bonus material will include every known non-commercial recording ever made of the legendary pianist.

The remarkable Ward Marston, blind from birth, lives outside Philadelphia with his seeing eye dog, Vinnie, and a collection of over 30,000 records. He is one of the industry’s most revered audio engineers. His remasterings of the great performers of the past have been acclaimed as revelatory and even miraculous.

The liner notes of the Rachmaninoff release are by musicologist Richard Taruskin, also at the forefront of his field. Taruskin, particularly renowned for his knowledge and insights into Russian music, is a visiting scholar this week at the 29th Annual Bard Music Festival: Rimsky-Korsakov and His World at Bard College.

Interestingly, Rimsky’s score for “Le Coq d’or” (“The Golden Cockerel”) was the only work by another composer that Rachmaninoff brought with him when he left Russia in 1917. The three-note motif that opens his “Symphonic Dances” recalls the Queen of Shemakha’s theme from Rimsky’s opera.

Rachmaninoff and Vladimir Horowitz once played through Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto together in 1928, in an impromptu performance in the basement of Steinway Hall. Can you imagine? Rachmaninoff later approached Victor Records about recording the “Symphonic Dances” with Horowitz on a second piano. The label dismissed the proposal out of hand as being commercially unviable.

The album “Rachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances:”

Rachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances

More information on Marston:

http://www.wardmarston.com/about.html

A sample from the upcoming release: