Sym.3, Cantata: Polyansky / Russian State.so

Alexander Grechaninov was something of a living anachronism, and a very long-lived one at that. A contemporary of Mahler, Sibelius, and Ives, his style remained on the conservative side of the Tchaikovsky tradition until his death in 1956. He wrote a great deal of Orthodox Church music, meaning that after 1917 a substantial part of his output was disenfranchised in his native Russia.
His five symphonies have been largely forgotten, but Valery Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra have done their best to revive them with a series of recordings on Chandos. The Third, written in 1923, is a big, colorful affair, reminiscent of Glazunov or Rachmaninov, and it is passionately performed in this spectacularly vivid and resonant recording. The disc also includes the first-ever recording of the cantata 'Praise the Lord,' a choral concert work with orchestra that has many of the soulful qualities of Grechaninov's liturgical music.