SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO 14

Distance lends enchantment. This famous mid-century group used to sound ‘big’ in its time, and fortepiano fanciers will wince at the expansive, fruity opening to the Archduke. The rest of us can enjoy a generosity of phrasing that now seems to sing the joy and pain of life itself. To be frank it is a bit sedentary, but the steady pulse allows the interplay of fine musical responses to be taken in at ease. Several degrees lighter in manner and acoustic – and despite a stereo spread that, with headphones, has violin and cello arguing from opposite sides of your head – the Ghost has energy and feeling even if it doesn’t peer over the existential edge.

-- Robert Maycock, BBC Music Magazine

Serkin is ursine and magisterial in his approach, but with a feline agility in the quicker music that surprises.

This version of Brahms 2 disc has been around for at least a decade and music-lovers (the fortunate ones of longer standing) will know of it from many previous versions on LP, cassette and even CD. This has been something of a nostalgic journey for me. I bought a bargain box CBS LP set of the Serkin Brahms concertos back in 1971. Their attractions have not dwindled in the intervening years and the Brahms 2 is quite simply terrific.

Serkin is ursine and magisterial in his approach. However he has a feline agility in the quicker music that surprises in one who so naturally expresses the epic. This dichotomy is best displayed in the Second Concerto which recording must assuredly be counted among the greats. This is an unconditional must-have for those who can live with the original CBS sound. OK so it is a mite grainy and just slightly unfocused. Szell's Clevelanders have plenty of bite and a gravelly determination that is deeply impressive.

Throughout the Cleveland strings are searching though not as lustrous as they could be. The layers of texture are merged more closely in a sound signature that is peculiarly American and for which the CBS engineers presumably strove. The weighty string sound is homogeneous and edge-of-seat alert with probing emotionalism.

The Strauss Burleske is a felicitous apt companion to the Brahms Second and follows on - very much in keeping with the joyous spirit of the Brahms finale.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

BERLIOZ: HAROLD EN ITALIE, LA

DEBUSSY: IMAGES POUR ORCHESTRE

SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO 5, E

Debussy: La mer, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Danse &

...[I]n such a spirited reading [as this performance of the Prokofiev First] the parallels between the Prokofiev and the Bizet [Symphony in C] are very much highlighted: the 'classical' symphonies of Prokofiev's title—those, presumably, of Haydn and Mozart — seem comparatively remote. But for all their brilliance elsewhere the players manage to be sinuously winning enough in the Symphony's slow movement... [a performance] of the very first class.

-- Gramophone [5/1969, reviewing an LP release of the First Symphony]

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Bernstein gives a highly romantic version of the first movement... [I]t could hardly be better done... The playing throughout the whole symphony is in the highest class and the recording is of the same quality.

-- Gramophone [10/1967, reviewing the original LP release of the Fifth Symphony]

This CD includes additional tracks of spoken commentary by musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon on Missa "Sunt bona mixta malis" in English, German and French.

DVOR·K: SYMPHONIES NOS 7 & 8

THE ROYAL EDITION - NIELSEN: S

The series of Schubert recordings by the Tal and Groethuysen Duo received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Award for "Best Special Edition."

The very first bars of Bernstein's performance impinge on the senses; this is going to be an occasion. The lower strings start slower than ever before, and perhaps quieter too. There is tension from the first note, and, my goodness, you certainly do listen—even when later on doubts begin to assail you. The quick bits tend to go quicker, the slow bits slower, the tempo changes more often, every phrase, every counter-subject is pointed. It is immensely exciting; at times, excitable. Bernstein is, as they say, "doing something with it" in every bar, and the orchestra responds with both warmth and praiseworthy precision. A lot of thought has gone into this interpretation, and great expertise into its realisation, for it is not easy for an orchestra to embrace this degree of rubato and emerge with its ensemble intact. I must say that I very much enjoyed it all. There were moments when I thought Bernstein went right over the edge; most strikingly during the Gargantuan rallentando in the finale leading up to the second subject in five sharps. For no less than eleven bars the tempo gets slower and slower and slower till you could scream. But I think one must forgive a lapse or two in this type of interpretation, which is taking risks all the time. It is a much more difficult kind of performance to bring off than the conventional one, and though one or two things go awry a great many come off splendidly. The second movement is a joy. The tempo is faster than we are used to, and it is in fact a true Allegretto, which is Franck's marking for it; in Britain conductors usually seem to play it Andante. Bernstein almost dances along, as indeed does Munch who, on the rival stereo disc, adopts exactly the same tempo, and that is how I shall always hope to hear this movement in future. Bernstein is content to leave the tempo alone much of the time, though he manages the transitions delightfully.

-- Gramophone [10/1960, reviewing the original LP release of the Franck Symphony]

HAYDN: SYMPHONIES NOS 93, 95 &

THE ROYAL EDITION - BRUCKNER: