Russian ‘classical' music seems to have a dual consciousness: sometimes grave and interiorised, sometimes luminous and resolutely forward-looking. At root, this sentiment draws equally on the countless traditions of the biggest country in the world and on its relationship with western Europe, and especially France, from the 18th century onwards. If we had to define the very special atmosphere of Russian music in a few words, we might say that it represents the ‘exchange', ‘sharing' and ‘absorption' of an infinity of cultural and musical idioms. The principal interest of the works on this set is the approach they represent to three central aspects of this repertory, three ‘Treasures of Russia', through three of its most famous composers: the influence of Orthodox religious music with the Vespers of Serge Rachmaninoff; the modernity and importance of the musical ‘image' with Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; and finally the languor and inner heartbreak so characteristic of the Russian soul, as laid bare in one of the peaks of musical emotion – the Sixth Symphony of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the ‘Pathétique'.