This parallel recording compares the very dry, precise studio sound (here in the acoustics of the Teldex studio, strings at studio orchestra strength and the sound of a New York Steinway from the 1950s), as can be heard in recordings with the composer in the 1940th, with a sound that one might expect in a modern concert hall (here the acoustics of the Berlin PhilharmonyHi, with larger orchestral line-up and a current German Steinway D).
With the authorization of Rachmaninoff's heirs, A. Warenberg published an arrangement of the Second Symphony as a piano concerto. He achieved the three-movement form of a concerto by combining parts of the slow movement and the scherzo. Although the music is shortened in many sections, it corresponds in all its included parts to the music of the symphony. The orchestral accompaniment heard on these recordings was therefore taken directly from the score of the symphony itself.