It might seem a curious decision for Leopold Stokowski to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s Pictures when Ravel’s 1922 version had such flair and mastery. Yet he was a law unto himself and anyway Serge Koussevitzky, having commissioned Ravel’s transcription, retained exclusive rights over it for a number of years. So Stokowski created his own, omitting ‘Tuileries’ and ‘The Market-Place at Limoges’ for reasons of his own. His squealing solo trumpet in ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’ may draw on Ravel but much else is different and he opens the first ‘Promenade’ with strings and low woodwind. Under Oliver Knussen it makes a grandiose opening and there is a kaleidoscopic richness of colour throughout. ‘Bydlo’ moves past at express speed (too fast, surely), but the effect is certainly exciting, and the heavy brass in ‘Catacombae’ is quite overwhelming. ‘Baba Yaga’, is again thrillingly brisk and pungent, while and the ‘Great Gate of Kiev’ is of course splendidly grandiloquent, but not more so than Ravel’s.

Night on Bare Mountain is another matter. As we discovered in Fantasia, Stokowski’s version is malignantly spectacular. He said that he went back to the ‘original orchestration’ – but which one? Anyway, it is splendidly played here, with a tolling bell left resonating at the close. Stokowski loved his bells (he had a private collection) and Knussen relishes the bell effects in the opera transcriptions, too.

The ‘Symphonic Synthesis’ from Boris Godunov, in six movements, fully captures the histrionic nature of the opera; with scoring in full Technicolor, it makes a huge impact here. Even more telling is the Entr’acte to Khovanshchina, scored and presented here with extraordinary richness. Indeed the playing is superb throughout. The recording, made in the glowing acoustic of Severance Hall, is in the demonstration class.