Though this version of The Nutcracker was recorded in the same venue as the parallel recording of Swan Lake (see above)—All Saints' Church, Tooting—and with the same producer and engineer, the sound is subtly different. There is the same bloom and body as in Swan Lake, with brass particularly vivid, but the reverberation is more intrusive. Where in Swan Lake the lively acoustic rarely seems to obscure necessary detail, The Nutcracker brings many passages where the weighty brass seem to put a gauze over the whole ensemble, so that we hear it through brass overtones. Rapid string passagework gets obscured. Not everyone will be worried, but after my delight in the sound of Swan Lake I was rather disappointed and prefer the cleaner, more intimate balance of the rival sets I have used for comparison—both Lanchbery and Previn on EMI and Tilson Thomas on CBS.
Nor does the performance have quite the same finesse as that of Swan Lake. As in that parallel issue the orchestra respond idiomatically to Tchaikovsky dance music and with obvious familiarity and love, but ensemble is not quite so crisp here and when Nutcracker competition is very strong in the CD catalogue, the shortcoming is the more noticeable. What the new set does have to distinguish it from its rivals is an unusual and attractive make-weight, a ripely enjoyable string work, the Arensky Variations on a theme of Tchaikovsky, till now not listed in the CD catalogue. There the warmly reverberant acoustic makes for sumptuous results, which rather remind me in their larger-than-life richness and resonances of the recent Virgin Classics issues from the newly reformed London Chamber Orchestra. It is music—warm and easy on the ear which blossoms from such treatment.
As to Nutcracker itself, it is largely the recording acoustic which makes Ermler's reading convey less of an intimate fairy-tale atmosphere than Lanchbery's for example. The results are on the beefy side, though the lightness of Ermler's treatment in such a number as ''Dance of the Snowflakes'' is magical, full of mystery, as is the ''Arab Dance''. Yet conversely he can unexpectedly let you down, as for example in the final ''Apotheosis'', where the reference back to the music of Act I is disappointingly slow and square, with the rhythm too evenly stressed, and with the flute solo not shaped affectionately enough. That is the exception. Generally Ermler, as in Swan Lake, has a natural feeling for springing rhythms and moulding rubato persuasively.
The selection of highlights from the set on a separate disc is well chosen, but at just under 55 minutes, none too generous compared with, say Tilson Thomas's highlights disc (CBS (CD) CD44656, 9/89) which provides over 15 minutes of music more and at mid price, though he does inexplicably omit one of the essential numbers, the stirring Pas de deux which follows the ''Waltz of the Flowers''.'