To inaugurate their collaboration with harmonia mundi, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have recorded a program as subtle as it is unexpected, with two seldom-heard masterpieces of 1913. From the bitingly ironical Shakespearian portrait of an ageing knight (Falstaff), to an existential meditation inspired by Poe (The Bells), both these 'literary' scores dramatically prolong the enchantments of a dying romanticism.