These are, as one would expect, excellent performances of some captivatingly colourful music. The Russian Easter Festival Overture is perhaps the best known of the works chosen, and Svetlanov excites some splendidly exuberant playing from players who naturally have the stuff of the music in their bones: they do not sound particularly taken in by the Soviet authorities' former attempt to secularize the work by re-titling it ''Holiday Overture'', and give a marvellous gravity and resonance to the old Church themes. Sadko is gaudily played, as befits a piece bedecked in Rimsky-Korsakov's most beguiling Oriental manner; and Svetlanov gives a lively kick to the rather more routine Serbian Fantasia (though it should be added that the authoritative voice of Tchaikovsky was raised in its favour at its first performance).
Much less well known is the little Sinfonietta, which began life as a string quartet. Nobody seems to have liked it much in that form, neither the players who tried it through nor the composer himself. He accordingly rewrote it in this new form, and certainly it would seem that the music needs the resources of the orchestra. One surprise, to lovers of Stravinsky's Firebird, is the appearance of the tune played there by the oboe in the ''Ronde des princesses''. Roman Vlad calls it ''reminiscent of Tchaikovsky pathos''; but here it is, beautifully harmonized in a manner quite different from Stravinsky and played on the horn. It is obviously a folk-song, and indeed it appears differently harmonized again) as No. 79 of Rimsky-Korsakov's collection of 100 national songs, Kak po sadiku. It is a charming tune, and makes a pretty slow movement for the Sinfonietta. The Overture on Russian Themes is rousingly played. Dubinushka, mentioned in the sleeve-note, has not been included on the disc. The recordings are good and clear.'