The Sixth is Prokofiev's greatest symphony (as RL has been claiming for years) though it remains, inexplicably, among his least recorded. Mravinsky's is not, as Multisonic claim, a Moscow Radio recording, but a first CD transfer of his original MK recording (c1958), the LP of which was once available here on both MK and Artia. Bearing in mind that Mravinsky gave the premiere, and that he remains, with Jarvi, its joint greatest interpreter on record, you may feel that his recording deserves a better transfer (you may also be justifiably annoyed about the economy artwork).
When I made a direct comparison with the MK LP my first impressions were that the CD was a different performance. It is hard to fathom why Multisonic have filtered the first 50 seconds of the symphony's start (taking the sting out of the opening trumpets), or why levels for the finale have been raised a decibel or two. Furthermore, the LP had a better defined bass and more natural mid-tones. To be fair, it is a relief to find that the LP's moments of sudden break-up are not on the mastertape. And the transfer engineers probably can't be blamed for the Largo's unarresting opening (it seems to have been Mravinsky's idea to damp down his timpani and horns here); nor can they be blamed for the original Soviet engineers dropping the levels for the two agonized outbursts in the finale's last pages, such a heart-rending moment in Jarvi's recording. The transfer does little to improve the lot of the hard-done-by piano (it does of the triangle, which Mravinsky chose to add to the Largo's central 'martial' section), or disguise the fact that the strings are often much closer than the woodwind.
The Leningrad strings are the main reason for supplementing your Gramophone Award-winning Jarvi recording with this disc; they place and pitch faster-moving figures and 'carry' the sweep of melody so much more expressively (and accurately) than Jarvi's Scottish strings. Mravinsky's is also a tauter (though never rigid) reading. Jarvi manages greater contrasting poignancy from the first movement's second, chant-like theme; and allows himself more time and tranquillity in the Largo. Both conductors memorably pace the symphony's final cruel bars at less than Prokofiev's a tempo marking.
The box tells us that 1946 is the recording date of Petrushka; the booklet then goes on to tell us that Mravinsky used the original 1911 version rather than the 1947 revision. If the recording date is correct, he probably wouldn't have had the choice! At least the booklet information is correct (unlike Sony Classical's risible claim that the composer's own 1960 recording is of the 1911 score).
The recorded perspectives in this Petrushka are about as variable as Mravinsky's involvement. It is baffling how he could conduct such a lithe and vital opening (the charlatan's flute charms an extraordinary pianissimo from the ensuing strings) and follow this with a slow and joyless ''Russian Dance''. He makes equally heavy weather of ''The Ballerina and the Moor'' waltz; and then the performance comes alive again for the return of the Fair (it is worth the wait).
There are, in fact, a number of surprisingly slow tempos—particularly the first half of the ''Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms'' which comes as a jolt if you're used to the 1947 revision's easing down thereto—and they are one reason for the performance's lack of continuity. More unsettling is the abrupt halt and omission of the final eight bars of Petrushka's quarrel with the Moor at the end of scene 3 (the link between scenes 1 and 2 is also missing a few bars). And beware of the concluding bars: Mravinsky slows for the ghost's final mocking cries and delays the re-entry of the horns—a hair-raising amendment that Kondrashin also made in his 1973 Concertgebouw recording (now at mid-price). The editing is often crude, but the sound is mostly clean. So, a Petrushka to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure, but don't let me put you off—who knows when or indeed whether Mravinsky's Prokofiev Sixth will see the light of day again?'