Music and Vinyl: Rachmaninoff

Back in February I posted some music by Eugene Goossens, but it was his conducting that he was most known for. (See the earlier post and the notes below for more information about Goossens). His hasty return to London from Australia, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, in 1956 meant that he was now available for recording work in the UK, and was one of the conductors employed by Everest Records, along with Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent, Josef Krips, Hugo Rignold and Leopold Stokowski (and others), for a series of classical recordings using a system of three channel recording on to 35mm magnetic film.

The short-lived Everest classical operation (1958-1962) produced some great recordings in excellent sound - the result of engineer Bert Whyte's expertise in capturing the acoustic of the Walthamstow Assembly Rooms. This recording of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances - with Sir Eugene Goossens and the London Symphony Orchestra - is an original issue from the time, recorded shortly before Goossen's death in 1962 (though I can't find the exact date it was made).

The Symphonic Dances was completed in late 1940, and given it's premiere by the dedicatee Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia in 1941. For notes on the music see the sleeve note scan below.