In its latest label signing, Harmonia Mundi has announced a creative partnership with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and its Russian-British Music Director Vasily Petrenko. That’s terrific news. Petrenko is one of the most interesting conductors around right now and his turbo-charged, yet penetrating performances invariably have a great deal to say.

In his excellent program note, the conductor explains the decision to debut with a double bill of Rachmaninov and Elgar. Both men became national treasures, though both ended up out of step with the rising generation. Elgar, the son of a Worcestershire violin teacher, hit form under Queen Victoria only for his inspiration to decline during the reign of her grandson, George V. Rachmaninov, a minor aristocrat, upped sticks and relocated to America to escape the Russian Revolution. Although he continued writing well into the 1930s, his career as a professional pianist seriously curtailed his composing.

By coincidence, both men peaked in the years leading up to WWI, and Petrenko has chosen a pair of less-well-known but representative works, both written in 1913. The Bells, settings of Edgar Allan Poe, reflect the...