Moscow is a rarity, more so than it deserves to be. The difficulty, of course, is that one city does not normally give performances of works in praise of another, which makes Andrew Litton’s earlier Dallas recording a handsome gesture. Apollon Maykov’s text outlines Moscow’s history from peaceful origins by way of martial triumphs to its ruling position as a protective Pan-Slav capital. Opportunities are provided for some lyrical music in Tchaik-ovsky’s authentic vein, together with more routine assertions by an impassioned mezzo-soprano and baritone, vigorously delivered here. Unfortunately the all-important choruses suffer from an abrasive recording.

The Festival Cantata written in commemoration of Peter the Great’s bicentenary is a much more uneven matter, partly cobbled together from previously written music. It includes some pleasant choral writing alongside passages of strenuous declamation when Tchaikovsky seems at a loss as to what to do except relapse into fanfarings or, worse, a stupefyingly dull choral fugue.

The booklet-note, which says almost nothing about the music, deplorably does not include any texts. In this case, it sounds as if the version used is Yakov Polonsky’s original rather than the Soviet substitute that has been published; but in 1982, when the recording was made, it was obviously difficult to accept Tchaikovsky’s inclusion of the Tsarist national anthem.

Nature and Love is little more than an occasional piece written for pupils of Tchaikovsky’s Conservatoire colleague Berta Valzek, pleasantly turned, pleasantly sung and falling easily on the ear.