Balletic victims in tandem, both scored with the utmost colour, are manipulated here as if by the scruff of the neck. Petrushka (1947 version) comes off best, especially a phrasally imaginative Third Tableau, the racy solo violin and Reich-like piano pulse in ‘Gypsies and a Rake Vendor’ and ‘The Scuffle’, which is unusually well articulated. My main quibbles are with the odd over-emphases, a heavy-handed ‘Russian Dance’ and an interpretative overview that is noticeably short on cumulative dramatic tension. I also have problems with the Watford Town Hall recording which, while homing in on sundry details (the strings and brass are invariably subjected to the closest scrutiny), lacks the sort of three-dimensional perspective that has become second nature for most of today’s best teams – and which Decca employ to such stunning effect for Riccardo Chailly and the Concertgebouw.
The Miraculous Mandarin adds confusion to crudeness, even as early as 0'53'' into the Introduction, which seems to fall out of focus. Kent Nagano effects a strange crescendo in the horn part 1'12'' into the ‘First Decoy Game’ and I found the scrubbing string tremolandos in the second Game far too conspicuous. On the other hand, at the point when the Mandarin appears at the doorway (track 24), trombones let rip with such force that the 11 fortissimo woodwind lines that back them are all-but obliterated. On the plus side, the Chase’s violins are appropriately ‘bowed rough’ (Bartok’s marking) and the almighty ‘punch-up’ on track 23 has real vigour. The rest is less striking, and the chorus’s entry as the Mandarin’s body begins to glow (track 36) suggests neither mystery nor ceremony.
Characterful music-making, then, presented very much ‘in your face’, so that the odd rough edge jars more than it might otherwise have done. Not a disc that I would care to revisit.'