The Storm, not to be confused with The Tempest, is one of Tchaikovsky's earliest surviving orchestral works—summer holiday homework in 1864 for the 24-year-old St Petersburg Conservatory student. ''Full of intimations of later, greater things to come'', as commentators are wont to say about works of youth, its 'love' theme was, in fact, reworked in the slow movement of his First Symphony two years later. That, and another borrowing may partly explain why Tchaikovsky never performed or published it in later life (hence the posthumously acquired opus number). Wit's is a decent performance, comparable to Rozhdestvensky's, without the latter's refinement of dynamics, or liquid, luminous woodwind.
And 'decent', for this account of the Fifth Symphony, is the moderate description beyond which I do not feel compelled to enthuse (or otherwise), except to say that, as in these artists' recent Naxos account of the Third Symphony (2/94), Wit shows himself more than capable of singing and shaping a Tchaikovsky cantabile. I might be moved to more purple praise were the acoustics of the Polish Radio Concert Hall in Katowice to flatter the sound of this orchestra a little more; they certainly deserve it. The large, empty hall sound expands impressively, but without the kind of clarity you would expect from a modern recording, and with a slightly metallic 'ring' to tuttis. As before, woodwind have a dull pallor, and have to fight for their right to be heard alongside strings and brass (and occasionally succeed); their woolly fortissimo ostinato at the start of the finale's moderato assai (9'34'') is fairly typical. If you can tolerate a degree of analogue tape hiss, the 1966 Markevitch is in a different league completely, both as sound and performance, and is available at bargain price either in a Philips four-disc box of all the numbered symphonies (3/91), or in a duo 'twofer' of the last three symphonies.'