The rule that CD exposes weaknesses as well as merits in the original master recording comes out very clearly here. Last April IM gave a very unenthusiastic notice to the LP version, which he described as ''extraordinarily unsuccessful''. The CD version helps to aerate the texture which, as IM said, are surprisingly thick for a digital recording, but in the Beethoven Fifth (recorded in Nagoya) the violin tone is still thin to the point of seediness and the opening of the Scherzo has the cello and bass line sounding like a single and not-too-well-tuned cello. The VPO could rightly be concerned at the sound, so unrelated is it to that which we normally recognize from them.
The Unfinished, recorded in tokyo, comes off rather better, the violin tone still bright but far sweeter with more atmosphere round the whole ensemble. It helps that Schubert's instrumentation is less aggressive.'