The main point of listening to the very early Capriccio sinfonico is for the shock of hearing in its main allegro section an idea that Puccini re-used over a dozen years later at the very beginning of La boheme. We think of it as pure and mature Puccini, that bustling tune, and yet here is evidence that he wrote it ages before he truly became Puccini. I wonder whether Kaspszyk has ever conducted, or even heard La boheme? Surely if he had, if he had even fleeting memories of the Bohemian exuberance that idea evokes, he would not have phrased it quite so stodgily as he does here? Something similar happens in the Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut, which is slow to the point of grossness, and quite without headiness or passion. Even if Kaspszyk is unaware of the dramatic context of the piece, did he not even read the superscription from Prevost's novel that Puccini had printed above the music?
Or perhaps he is just not very keen on minor Puccini (in which case why bother to record it?). I don't think that can be true, since the Preludio sinfonico goes much better, a rather coarse climax apart, and the charmingly elegiac Crisantemi is affectionately phrased. The very slight minuets are decidedly sleepy (only a somnambulist could dance to them) but the two Edgar preludes have some dramatic heft to them. All in all, though, this is not an especially eloquent act of advocacy for Puccini's chips and shavings; even the recording is at times coarse-grained.'