The Jarvi/Prokofiev connection more or less speaks for itself now, and is it my imagination or do the SNO sound more like native Slavs with each disc? The two Diaghilev ballets from Prokofiev's exile years are more than adequately represented here in their suite form, streaks of brilliance offsetting pages of the merely mediocre.
Needless to say, Jarvi makes no such apology, seeing to it that even the thinnest pages of a sporadically entertaining work like Chout are given the very highest profile: here then are elements of burleske as typified by the loud-mouthed clarinet of the opening number, the sensual decadence of ''the Buffoon disguised as his sister'' with its curvacious insinuating harmonies—Jarvi and his strings enjoy that—and the rich Merchant's sweeping folk melody decked out in opulent string and horn unison, later returning over a welter of pulsating percussion. All are duly relished, none more so than the undoubted highspot of the suite—the demented Final Dance, which builds from lone folksy fiddler to full orchestral frenzy in little more than three minutes. Jarvi turns whirling dervish with a vengeance during the final pages, but somehow manages to keep his balance long enough to deliver a wonderfully decisive pay-off in the last couple of bars.
From Chout, with barely pause for breath, we are into the iron and steel foundry with Le pas d'acier, its tireless ostinatos and mechanical percussion (explicit to the last cog and wheel in the final movement—''The factory''—and again most excitingly executed) pausing only for a little light relief in the third of the four movements where a well-soused sailor (bassoon) is persuaded by a woman worker to join the factory force (gently persuasive violin, what else?). Significant, if not vintage Prokofiev, then, and a must for the library shelf however infrequently one might take it down.
On more familiar ground, the clatter of trumpets and side drum and terrific braying horns immediately signal that Jarvi's Three oranges suite will be everything one might expect. The great skirls of strings and upper winds create a dazzling effect in the card-game between Magician and Witch, we've an unusually gritty ''March'' and furious ''Flight'' (the SNO strings once again delivering above and beyond the call of duty) where the stern warnings of tam-tam, bass drum and heavy brass once again put our equipment through its paces.'