"Here are precisely the three works that Rachmaninov-the-conductor committed to disc. Inevitably one is tempted to make comparisons - but an album should stay on its own terms. The new recording starts well with the moodily atmospheric 'Isle of the Dead', and the 'Vocalise' taken fairly swiftly, though John Wilson adds an artful ebb and flow to the tempo. Yet, despite the orchestra's admirable ensemble and immaculate playing, hearing these beautifully recorded performances left me unmoved. The reason why became clear with the Symphony"

"Recommended: Earlier this year ... I gave the orchestral recital of music by Strauss, Korngold and Schreker by John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London very strong recommendations ... This new issue of three works by Rachmaninov is of the same high quality. Especially impressive is their account of The Isle of the Dead ... Both for sound engineering and interpretative excellence this is a recording to stand alongside my other favourites from Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic for both the Isle of the Dead and the symphony, and Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra for the symphony coupled with the Symphonic Dances"

"I have never heard Rachmaninov's imaginative scoring here in The Isle of the Dead brought out so vividly, allowing us to appreciate the powerful pictorial imagination of the composer ... It is probably difficult to make such a splash with the Third Symphony but Wilson's approach pays off here too"

"Editor's choice - October 2022: it was a typically canny move of Wilson to follow his splendid Hollywood Soundstage with Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3, premiered in Philadelphia just a couple of years before the earliest films featured on that album: the SoL's distinctive, swooning vintage string sound pays equally rich dividends here, though in what has to be one of the creepiest accounts of Isle of the Dead on record the same players summon such other-worldly glassiness that you'd swear theremins and/or Novachords were involved!"

Vurdering: 5/5