Chout was the first of Prokofiev's ballets that Diaghilev actually staged. In 1914 Diaghilev had briefly toyed with the idea of staging the Second Piano Concerto as a ballet but instead commissioned a new score, Ala et Lolly better known as the Scythian Suite, which he didn't much care for and never mounted. His second commission was Chout (''The tale of the buffoon'') which reached the stage in 1921 and was more of a success with the public than the critics—which is what matters! Deservedly so, for it has abundant melodic resource and harmonic subtlety. In his recent book Sergei Prokofiev (Hale: 1987), Harlow Robinson speaks of its ''startling inventiveness'' and reminds us that although Diaghilev claimed to like it, he dropped it from the repertoire after 1922. Prokofiev made a concert suite of 11 numbers from the full ballet and many of these have found their way on to record, though I can't say that Chout has enjoyed generous representation in the catalogue. I still treasure the pioneering two 78rpm discs by the Lamoureux Orchestra under Albert Wolff (Polydor), a much underrated conductor, but this, like most of its successors, only offered some numbers. Walter Susskind recorded all 12 numbers of the suite on LP with the LSO (Everest) as did Rozhdestvensky on his 1962 LP with the Moscow Radio Orchestra (EMI). Neither were so sensitive or refined as Claudio Abbado's Decca account (the only LP survivor).
The present disc is the first to give us the complete score, which runs to almost an hour and is full of colour and imagination. Rozhdestvensky gives a lively account of the ballet and gets good playing from his Moscow orchestra, though they don't match Abbado's mid-1960s LSO in refinement. The recording is as vivid as the music; indeed, some may find it a little overbright at the top end of the spectrum. However, this is a minor quibble and would not deter me from getting this rewarding issue. Strongly recommended.'