Rachmaninoff's Third and Second Symphonies are distanced from each other not only by thirty years but also by the turning point in history that bisected...

Rachmaninoff's Third and Second Symphonies are distanced from each other not only by thirty years but also by the turning point in history that bisected the destiny of the Russian intelligentsia. Rachmaninoff was full of creative energy and aspirations while writing the Second Symphony, in 1906-1907, even though he sought solitude in Dresden to feel the breath of his Motherland from a distance and to relate his own destiny to it. He was already a different person by the mid-1930s, struggling with the aftermath of his fate as an exile and summing up his life. He wrote this new work about Russia and himself - which was to become the Third Symphony - at villa Senar in Switzerland. The geographical distance was aggravated by the distance in time: a gravitation towards the cherished past, to which it was impossible to return. The Ural Philharmonic Orchestra under Dmitry Liss has repeatedly performed the Third Symphony in both Russia and abroad; they also performed it in La Folle Journee festival in Nantes in 2018. The orchestra's interpretation of Ravel's La Valse is similarly iconic; this gained particular recognition from European critics and opened the doors to the world's leading stages.