REVIEWS:
BBC Music (3/98, p.72) - Performance: 3 (out of 5), Sound: 3 (out of 5) - "Liszt's symphonic poems call for performances that blend flamboyance and exalted lyricism - or, in other words, that revel in Romantic empathy....Fortunately, Michael Halász and the New Zealand Symphony offer real performances rather than unimaginative run-throughs....The orchestra...plays with considerable fire in extrovert passages..."

All four of these symphonic poems are performed here in outstanding fashion. Crisp, lively playing of symphonic masterpieces! Halasz and the Katowice give us a selection of the most famous symphonic poems, with major success. Just the right balance is struck throughout, with the quiet passages played gently & beautifully and when the music explodes this is classical thunder at it's best. The symphonic poems of Liszt caused some controversy. One of the most influential critics in Vienna, Eduard Hanslick, a champion of Brahms, wrote in 1857 of the impertinence of such an attempt: He fancies his music capable of fiddling and blowing the most magnificent phenomena of myth and history, the most profound thoughts of the human mind. Hanslick's objection was not to music with some extra-musical association, but to the vastness of the subjects tackled and what he saw as a reliance on an external program to justify an absence of musical content. The Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra of Katowice (PRNSO) was founded in 1945, soon after the end of the World War II, by the eminent Polish conductor Witold Rowicki. The PRNSO replaced the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra which had existed from 1934 to 1939 in Warsaw, under the direction of another outstanding artist, Grzegorz Fitelberg. In 1947 Grzegroz Fitelberg returned to Poland and became artistic director of the PRNSO. He was followed by a series of distinguished Polish conductors - Jan Krenz, Bohdan Wodiezko, Kazimierz Kord, Tadeusz Strugala, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Stanislaw Wislocki and, since 1983, Antoni Wit. The orchestra has appeared with conductors and soloists of the greatest distinction and has recorded for Polskie Nagrania and many international record labels. Michael Halasz Born in Hungary in 1938, Michael Halasz began his professional career as principal bassoonist in the Philharmonia Hungarica, a position he occupied for eight years, before studying conducting in Essen. His first engagement as a conductor was at the Munich Gartnerplatz Theater, where, from 1972 to 1975, he directed all operetta productions. In 1975 he moved to Frankfurt as principal Kapellmeister under Christoph von Dohnanyi, working with the most distinguished singers and conducting the most important works of the operatic repertoire. Engagements as a guest-conductor followed, and in 1977 Dohnanyi took him to the Staatsoper in Hamburg as principal Kapellmeister.

1987 release with highlights from his famous ballets. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) performed by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at Concert Hall of the Slovak Philahrmonic June 20-25, 1987 & Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded at Concert Hall of the Czecho-Slovak Radio in Bratislava October 13-20, 1987 conducted by Michael Halasz & Ondrej Lenard. The music of Tchaikovsky, in spite of the reservations of contemporaries at home and abroad, must seem to US both essentially Russian and firmly in the West European tradition. In Vienna the critic Eduard Hanslick was able to complain of the "trivial Cossack cheer" of the finale of the Violin Concerto, but in Russia Tchaikovsky never went far enough to please the self-appointed leader of musical nationalists, Balakirev. While by no means a miniaturist, he nevertheless excelled in his mastery of the smaller forms necessary in ballet, writing music that displayed his remarkable gifts of melody and skill in orchestration.

This 1987 Naxos CD has the Nutcracker and Swan Lake suites, but omits the Sleeping Beauty. The Slovak Philharmonic, directed by Michael Halasz, excels on the rather longer Swan Lake suite, with some nice playing in the brass and a lovely duet between solo violinist Josef Bogacz and an unnamed cellist. The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was given it's première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on Sunday, December 18, 1892, on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's opera, Iolanta. Swan Lake Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875-76. The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales[a] and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger. The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March [O.S. 20 February] 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their staging's both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's chief conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo.