. . . [A]t this price how could anyone with the slightest weakness for Respighi hesitate? Scherbakov and Griffiths do a good deal more than...

. . . [A]t this price how could anyone with the slightest weakness for Respighi hesitate? Scherbakov and Griffiths do a good deal more than dutifully go through the motions, the soloist in particular playing with delicacy and affection . . . . [T]he Concerto and the Fantasia, both very early Respighi, are not patronized in the slightest. The central slow section of the Concerto, indeed, achieves something like nobility . . . . The Toccata is not so much an exercise in the neo-baroque, often though its dotted and florid figures promise it, more of an essay on how far one can be neo-baroque without giving up a post-Lisztian keyboard style and comfortable orchestral upholstery. But in a slow and florid central section, a rather melancholy aria that passes from the soloist to the oboe, to the strings and back again, there is a real quality of Bachian utterance translated not unrecognizably into a late romantic language . . . . Scherbakov sounds touched by it, and obviously wants us to like it. Indeed these are likeable performances of music that needs that sort of help, but repays it. . . . -- Michael Oliver, Gramophone