A couple of first recordings here are useful in filling gaps in the discography of the compulsively productive Milhaud (who once said that he “had to continue writing as long as there was ink in the pen”). Don’t let the existence of Rachmaninov’s famous choral setting of The Bells, or the fact that Russian forces are involved here, mislead you into false expectations: this is not a setting of Poe’s poem but a ballet score based on it. Written in 1946, it was well received at its premiere in Chicago but was a disaster when performed in New York by an ill-prepared Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo: Milhaud was obliged to substitute a simpler finale for subsequent performances, but restored the original for the Symphonic Suite now recorded. The work, about a young bride and her groom, begins joyously and melodiously, but at the “Bronze bells” section the atmosphere becomes heavy with menace, and the hysterical final bacchanale depicts the King of the Ghouls spiriting the bridegroom away. The resonance of the hall in which this live recording was made creates a slightly thick sound, though detail is mostly clear. Rozhdestvensky adopts slower speeds for the “Silver” and “Golden” sections than the composer indicates (some of his violins seem not always to have too good a head for heights) and makes heavy cuts in the finale.
The Third Symphony (the only one of Milhaud’s first ten not hitherto recorded) was commissioned by French radio to celebrate the ending of the Second World War. Starting with a vigorous, tough movement that could be interpreted as symbolizing wartime struggles, it passes to a meditative, prayerfully intense slow movement (in which a wordless chorus is imaginatively used): a jubilant Pastorale suggests the coming of peace, which is finally hailed in a choral Te Deum. Again there are marked divergences from Milhaud’s printed timings (a couple of minutes shorter in both the second and the last movements), but the performance is persuasive and exudes great confidence – more so than in The Bells – and the two middle movements, at least, represent Milhaud (an uneven composer) at his best.'