This is one of the most valuable as well as one of the most unexpected discs in the Revelation series, bringing us buried treasure from the Moscow Hall archive. The idea of Yuri Bashmet, a giant among viola players, playing the Walton is exciting, though delight is severely tempered here not only by the absurd recording balances, with the orchestral sound filtering from afar through that of the solo instrument, but also by the element of self-indulgence in the reading itself. The very opening is the most disturbing, for even in the introductory bars Rozhdestvensky includes marked rubato, preparing the way for Bashmet’s heavily inflected account of the lovely main theme. The result may reflect a genuine, warm response to the music, but the tenderness of the melody is far more effectively conveyed with more restraint. The tempo – as in virtually all latter-day recordings – is far slower than in the first recordings, both with the composer conducting – Riddle’s, and Primrose’s (EMI, 11/87 – nla) – and I look forward to an artist who will take note of that. In that first movement Bashmet is no slower than Imai or Kennedy, and marginally faster than Menuhin, also with the composer, but his expressive style makes him seem slower, at least at the start, though as always with Bashmet the sheer command, musically as well as technically, is most compelling. And when the playing of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra is often scrappy, it may be as well that one cannot hear too much of the detail. The bassoon soloist in the opening theme of the finale is splendid, but then paradoxically, when he plays that theme as an ostinato in the epilogue, under the soloist’s reflective return to the opening theme of the whole work, the bassoon balance is for once far too close, lacking mystery.
By contrast, the recording of Britten’s Spring Symphony, made in May 1963, not long after Britten’s own recording (Decca London, 9/93), brings excellent sound, fresh, clear and generally well balanced. In fact the sound is far more vivid than that on the BBC Classics issue of Rozhdestvensky’s Albert Hall Prom performance of 27 years later, in 1980, which I list for comparison. Much as I enjoyed that British performance, it is the Russian one, with far crisper ensemble and brisker speeds, which conveys greater electricity. With not a hint of a Slavonic wobble, all three soloists as well as the choirs (the adult one unnamed) are excellent, characterizing splendidly, and though it may seem bizarre to hear the work in Russian, the result could not be more refreshing, reflecting the intensive rehearsing that Rozhdestvensky must have insisted on. When the boys’ choir matches the others in bite and clarity, with an earthy treble tone that would have delighted the composer, it is disappointing that the one notable failure in the recording is the fact that when Sumer is icumen in enters at the end, you can only hear it on the four unison horns, with no hint of trebles following the same line. A small blot in a thrilling performance.'