Decca Classics

All of Rachmaninov’s music - from his earliest student compositions to his final masterpieces – has been collected together for the first time on 32 CDs, in what is definitively the most complete and comprehensive edition of Rachmaninov’s works ever released.

Towards the end of his life, Sergey Rachmaninov (1873–1943) noted that “music is enough for a whole lifetime — but a lifetime is not enough for music”. This collection nevertheless represents a remarkable lifelong achievement, documenting the composer’s music from his earliest student compositions to the final masterpieces. In the years after his death in 1943, Rachmaninov’s reputation foundered, with the leading reference publication Grove’s Dictionary prophesying obscurity in a notoriously damning and unscholarly assessment. In more recent decades, however, the composer’s music has gained many champions, and his unique contribution is celebrated. Today, Rachmaninov is justly regarded as a figure of substantial historical significance.