Grieg was at one time conductor of the orchestra in his home town, and it would be pleasing to report good things of its modern day successor in Bergen. But alas it seems on this evidence to be a body of no particular merit, with thin-sounding strings, and a rather sour woodwind blend—the first oboe, who has important solos in the Symphonic Dances, possesses a particularly uningratiating tone quality. Dmitri Kitaienko gets the orchestra to play at least efficiently and with good discipline, but his conducting is curiously bloodless and detached. This matters not so much in the Symphony, which as I have observed in these pages before, is an uncharacteristic, immature work which does not merit the half dozen or so recordings which it has received since its first performance in 1981: Grieg's wishes were after all that the work should not be performed. Jarvi's interpretation of the Symphony on DG is probably the best available.
The delightful Symphonic Dances sound pretty plain and unmagical in Kitaienko's hands, and one yearns for more elegance, more artful phrasing. Such qualities may be found in Jarvi's performance on DG, or in Rozhdestvensky's more individual interpretation on Chandos. Jarvi's couplings (the Norwegian Dances and the Lyric Suite) are more satisfactory than the less seductively performed songs on Chandos's disc, which also, however, include very good performances of the three Sigurd Jorsalfar pieces.
The recording quality on Virgin's disc is adequate, but somewhat lacking in presence and tonal bloom.'