The Bergen Philharmonic play these highly colourful showpieces very well for Dmitri Kitaienko, and succeed in playing them as more than just colourful showpieces. Rimsky-Korsakov tended to be self-deprecating about the symphonic quality of his symphonies, which was in part a function of his immense academic distinction and awareness of shortcomings including his own, but also perhaps because of a certain hesitancy about his creative direction. Yet these are highly attractive works, and Antar is one that somehow eludes Western concert repertories more than it should. Kitaienko does not drive it as hard as some conductors, among them Svetlanov, but he controls the form very lucidly and allows room for the orchestral detail to make its effect as a function of the music and not simply as decoration. This capacity serves him well in the First Symphony; and he makes much of the more purely decorative movements, the Andante tranquillo, in which Rimsky-Korsakov writes a movement of pure Glinka changing-background variations. It is charmingly and originally done, with some deliciously daring harmonic inflexions. The Capriccio espagnol goes at a splendid rate, with an exuberant clarinet and a lively violin to answer him. The recording is slightly on the hard side but creates no problems.'