Once as much talked about as his writer cousin Vladimir‚ Nicolas Nabokov has long slipped into public forgetfulness. Yet his early success with the Ode recorded here was considerable in both Paris‚ impelled by Diaghilev‚ and in London. Stravinsky took an interest in his fellow­expatriate‚ though his comments were rather muted (‘a gift that I find pleasant’)‚ and was also from time to time the father­figure of movements in the strange ballet­oratorio on this disc. Based on a rambling poem by Lomonosov subtitled ‘Méditation sur la majesté de Dieu’‚ the words seem‚ rather‚ to veil some kind of pantheism‚ encouraging choruses sometimes rapt‚ sometimes celebratory in a manner a long way after Stravinsky’s Les Noces. Side by side with this goes an attractive lyrical vein‚ as in a flowing Andante interlude with suggestions of Fauré. Nabokov’s move to America brought him renown from a very different audience when he was asked to write a truly American ballet on the theme of the building of the Union Pacific railway. This‚ too‚ is a very eclectic score‚ with elements that include bits of ragtime (rather a catchy Cakewalk)‚ some pentatonic ramblings that seem attached to the Chinese crew members‚ something suitable for the Irish workmen‚ and increasingly use of the wide­spaced ‘prairie’ textures that were to become associated with some of Copland’s music but can also give us the feeling that here we are again in Monument Valley with John Wayne saddled up. Lacking a strong unifying personality‚ the mixture inevitably sounds loose. Stravinsky’s faint praise was perhaps about right but it should not damn the scores too much: it is indeed pleasant music. Polyansky certainly makes the best case for it with fresh‚ enthusiastic performances.