DVD + Blu-Ray:
Chailly, Matsuev and the LFO play Rachmaninoff

Just in time for the adapted 2020 edition, the Opening Concert of the 2019 Lucerne Festival with works by Rachmaninoff is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

This new release from Accentus Music focuses on an extraordinary artist, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and his connection to the Swiss city of Lucerne. For Rachmaninoff, Lucerne was for many years both a refuge and a place of great concentration and artistic creation in equal measure. Over the coming years, Italian Conductor Riccardo Chailly and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra will devote themselves to Rachmaninoff and his time in Lucerne, and this release marks the beginning of their artistic discoveries.

Chailly, Music Director of the Lucerne Festival, says: “Particularly during his years at the Villa Senar, Rachmaninoff had the time and peace to relax, recharge his creativity and to conceive and compose some of his most important works”. For Chailly, the composer’s quality doesn’t just lie in his melodies, but in his ability to create a new harmonic landscape.

Marking three stages in his career, the concerto, étude, vocalise and symphony presented in 2019 all take the listener to Rachmaninoff’s places of retreat. In their diversity, these works invite us to appreciate the versatility of this extraordinary artist; to question, break through and expand our patterns of perception.

Recorded live at the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern August 2019.

Available worldwide from 14 August 2020.