These recordings—live, but with no disturbing side-effects—offer a valuable reminder that there has been more to Gunter Wand's musical world than Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner. It would indeed be fascinating to hear what Wand made of Bartok, Messiaen and Varese in those early post-war years in Cologne. Yet even though he may well have brought greater rhythmic definition to Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks in 1948 than he did in 1984, his engagement with twentieth-century music, as these far from neutral performances reveal, has remained acute.

The fleeting gestures of Webern's Op. 10 (the five pieces are not given separate tracks) are attentively characterized, with deliberation but also with open expressiveness. Wand's liking for warmly-shaped melody is clear from the very start of Frank Martin's Petite symphonie concertante. It would be idle to pretend that this account has the polish, or the careful balance of its problematic group of soloists (harp, harpsichord, piano), to be heard on the recent Suisse Romande version (Erato) but it is a skilfully integrated reading that makes the most of the music's carefully structured dramatic argument.

Wand's involvement with Wolfgang Fortner is historically significant, although the orchestral interlude from Fortner's Lorca opera Die Bluchochzeit (''Blood Wedding—1957) is too long for its own good. By comparison, Stravinsky's wit and economy (by no means precluding expressive depth) are the more impressive. Wand is alert to the elements of parody in the finale of Dumbarton Oaks, and maintains a lively rhythmic impetus. There is also a weightiness of texture creating an effect quite different from the razor-sharp, chamber orchestra versions we have grown used to, and of which Christopher Hogwood's Decca recording is probably the best recent example. But in this context Wand's interpretation gives a revealing glimpse of how a conductor whose normal concerns are so different responds to the glittering surfaces of a neo-classical gem.'

Arnold Whittall, The Gramophone