Any new version of Prokofiev's masterpiece must possess very special qualities if it is to mount a serious challenge to the exceptional comparative triumvirate listed above. Mark Ermler and the Covent Garden orchestra have their moments but theirs is perhaps too inconsistent an achievement overall to be ranked alongside the very best. No grumbles, certainly, about Tryggvi Tryggvason's admirable engineering, which offers plenty of ambient warmth and vivid detail (the brass in particular project excitingly well throughout). Unfortunately, the superbly realistic sonics only serve to expose the relative shortcomings in the actual orchestra. By the side of Maazel's staggeringly virtuosic Clevelanders and the gorgeous poise and sophistication of the Boston Symphony under Ozawa, the Covent Garden orchestra can at times sound uncomfortably provincial: granted, the brass acquit themselves well and the horn section can produce an excitingly full-throated sonority when required, but the strings are rather lacking in sheer muscle, tonal clout and (occasionally) ideal technical assurance.
In Act 1, Ermler's manner struck me as just a bit plain-spun. There's too little sense of expectant bustle in ''Morning Dance'' and insufficient cut and thrust in the quarrel and fight music which ensues. Both ''Masks'' and ''Dance of the Knights'' could do with greater swagger, whilst the ''Balcony scene'', in spite of some refulgent horn-playing, does not have the passionate ardour or sensual breadth that Ozawa for one brings to it. Things seem to improve somewhat for the sequence of dance numbers which open Act 2, yet later on, from ''The Duel'' through to the concluding cortege, Ermler somehow fails to generate the requisite physical excitement (his distinctive, very measured ''Death of Mercutio'' would have been more eerily effective were there greater tension about the orchestral response). Romeo's farewell to Juliet early in Act 3 here yields a delicate wistfulness rather than yearning heartache, but in the rolling swell of the Interlude following ''Juliet alone'' Ermler obtains brass sounds of truly impressive amplitude.
Both the mandolin-led ''Aubade'' and sultry ''Dance of the girls with lilies'' come off well, though the decorative solo violin writing in the former could with advantage have been a bit tidier. Undeniably powerful as it is in Ermler's hands, the climax of ''Juliet's funeral'' resounds with even more overwhelming tragic rage on Myung-Whun Chung's recent selection, and the Korean imparts an immensely moving nobility to the ''Death of Juliet'' (the more I return to Chung, the more I hope that DG will eventually let him give us Prokofiev's score in its entirety).
In the final analysis, then, this new Conifer version can't quite compete with the very finest available, and I honestly couldn't say that it seriously begins to rival the orchestral splendour of Maazel, the balletic flair of Ozawa or the theatrical pungency of Gergiev. We could also do with a reissue of Previn's fine HMV set (12/73—nla).'