Another take on Mussorgsky’s Pictures – and it would seem that the Slovak Peter Breiner (b1957) doesn’t do things by half. The forces employed are vast (some 104 players, according to the documentation) and, granted, there are some intriguing sounds: at the very opening, for example, the orchestra resembles nothing so much as a giant synthesiser; I also rather like the piquant colouring of the piccolo an octave and a fifth above the tune in ‘The Old Castle’ (both Ravel in Boléro and Hindemith in the Symphonic Metamorphosis deploy a comparable harmonic effect).

Elsewhere, though, I can’t help feeling that too often Mussorgsky’s rivetingly original inspiration has been dressed up to sound alarmingly akin to some blockbuster movie soundtrack. In other words, novelty quickly degenerates into thumb-twiddling tedium, and I find myself craving a defter, more tasteful touch – in which respect it’s all infinitely removed from the canny discernment of Ravel’s masterly recreation (Breiner’s outrageously gross treatment of ‘Bydπo’ with its thumping timpani and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink percussion had me laughing for the wrong reasons). Needless to say, both the New Zealand SO and the Naxos production team apply themselves to the task in hand with accomplishment and gusto. Baffling, especially given that the two song-cycles following Pictures show what Breiner is really capable of when he heeds the axiom of ‘less is more’. Overall, however, this is not a disc I can envisage myself revisiting any time soon.