Jansons opens at a very slow tempo indeed, as if wishing to draw the very most out of Berlioz's love-song. It is virtually impossible to sustain the mood at this speed, or not to lose momentum; and the effect here is not reflective, nostalgic, but merely heavy. The music never really recovers. Jansons evidently wishes to take the symphony seriously as a work of just proportions and logical structure, justifiable in its own abstract right apart from the fantasy of the programme. There are ways of reaching a truth about the work without the exaggerations that can go with too superficially romantic an approach (Klemperer could do that, as on his recently reissued EMI performance); but too often the present performance is merely stolid. The Ball is leaden-footed, the countryside featureless; and the March tramps doggedly on without menace. There are too many other variously admirable performances of the work, cleanly played and recorded as this one is, for it to be a prime choice. Allegiance to Norrington (EMI) and the recent Davis (Philips) set remains unshaken.'