Several reviewers, comparing LPs with the Compact Disc, have spoken of the effect of lifting a veil. Making for the first time a detailed comparison between a record I had reviewed in its original form and the CD version, I was made well aware of what is meant by the metaphor. However, in my brief experience of the new system, the veil lifted only reveals more vividly the recorded sound behind any surface problems and the like and not something nearer the original. Indeed, there can be the paradoxical effect of noticing the shortcomings of a recording the more vividly when the necessity of making some aural compensation is removed. It is not unlike the experience which many have had of discovering the shortcomings of a well-loved record when they hear it played on better equipment than they themselves possess. Nevertheless, some timbres do seem to benefit. The timpani do well on this record, as at the start of the second movement, and so does the solo horn at the start of the work. Elsewhere, I have to confess that I do not notice a very great difference—simply the advantages of total silence before the music begins and total absence of surface. And it is very good to have issued, so soon, this remarkable record of Tchaikovsky's first thoughts on his symphony.'