BSO: Electrifying Rhythms

Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony, written nearly thirty years after his Second, has an ‘American’ feel to it – there are strong suggestions of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, but it is also his most expressively Russian symphony, particularly in the dance rhythms of the full-throttle finale. Containing all the wide-spanning tunes, colourful and characteristic orchestration and the melodic invention one expects, it includes new developments like quixotic sudden changes of mood, transparent textures and thematic strands which endlessly start and stop, weaving and overlapping one another.