A Modernist Aesthetic Hans Rosbaud conducts Tchaikovsky - heard by STEPHEN FRANCIS VASTA '... for veteran Tchaikovsky devotees, ... interesting listening.'

This release doesn't arrive under explicitly 'audiophile' auspices, but the Fourth Symphony, recorded in 1957, could well pass for such a production. The clarity of individual instruments, especially the solo woodwinds, within the vividly registered orchestra is striking for a fifty-year-old monaural recording; so is the fullness of the brass choir. Only an aggressive treble, which provokes aural fatigue by the end of the first-movement development, mars the impressive remastering. The Fifth Symphony, from three years earlier, has the same problem, and the orchestral image is fuzzier and more opaque, with supporting horn parts thickening the textures...

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

RUSSIA

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

GERMANY