The Royal Philharmonic play beautifully for Temirkanov, and it seems that he wishes the emphasis to lie on beauty of orchestral sound and grace of phrasing rather than on the dramatic impact of the pictures. So ''Gnomus'' is strong but scarcely suggests the awkward grotesque Mussorgsky had in mind. ''The Old Castle'' does better, with a gentle, mournful atmosphere; there is some beautiful wind playing, excellently balanced in the recording. ''Tuileries'' is rather too 'sensitive' for what was meant to be a bright flurry of sound, as are the ''Unhatched Chicks'' and ''The Market Place at Limoges''; more of a supermarket, the latter, rather than the colour and fuss of Frenchwomen engaged in bargaining to the death. The undercharacterization of the two Polish Jews does at least tone down Mussorgsky's anti-Semitism (not at all present in Hartmann's two original paintings, and rather heightened by Ravel's whingeing trumpet). ''Baba-Yaga'' is forceful, not terrifying. Things go much better with the ''Catacombe'' and ''Con mortuis'', where Ravel's sonorous and beautifully judged chords sound superb; and ''The Great Gate at Kiev'' makes a grand show. Where, though, is the toughness and sharpness of the original Pictures? Too much gloss in these reproductions.
The beautiful Khovanshchina Prelude, depicting dawn over the River Moscow, is sensitively played; and Temirkanov accompanies Leiferkus in Songs and Dances of Death with great care and understanding. The one place where he overwhelms the voice is at the very end of ''The field-marshal'', which is wrong but does make a kind of expressive point. Leiferkus is in any case not best suited to this song, which really needs a stronger, tougher, grittier voice than his lyrical baritone. He deals with the build-up to the grim climax with great intelligence, but the warmth of his sound is used to better effect in the ''Trepak'', where he and Temirkanov move into a splendidly macabre dance rhythm as the drunken old peasant settles into his fatal bed of snow, and still more in the ''Lullaby'' and in the ''Serenade'' as Death embraces the dying girl. There are notes in four languages (English, French, German and Italian), but, deplorably, no words for the songs.'