Kurt Weill's Second Symphony is the main work on both these CDs. Chandos couples it with the First Symphony and the ballet Quodlibet, while ATMA opts for Rota's La Strada suite played by Montreal's Grand Metropolitan Orchestra.

Weill composed his Second Symphony while in exile from Nazi Germany. There's a state of anxiety running through the music and any performance ought to reflect the unease of what is in essence a work by a composer on the run. Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his Montreal orchestra offer us assured and sophisticated playing which in the reflective passages, such as the pages before the coda to the first movement, demonstrates what fine wind and brass players there are in this ensemble.

Antony Beaumont's Bremen players on Chandos are similarly well groomed. This conductor makes more of the symphony's dynamic markings, as in the introduction to the first movement; and, with the assistance of a more transparent recording, his more animated reading brings us closer to the heart of this haunting work (Kent Nagano is still more compelling but his Erato version is out of circulation at present).

Beaumont is equally assured in the tricky First Symphony, drawn from music for an epic play with its theme of a better world for mankind. The symphony abounds in vivid contrasts, not least in the Postlude where Weill weighs up whether disillusionment or hope will win through. The delightful ballet Quodlibet offers shades of Hoffmann's Nutcracker in its piquant scoring and humour. Like Rota's La Strada suite (adapted from his film score), one would welcome the opportunity to see it on stage. The Montreal orchestra play this tuneful and often touching music of circus folk as though they were under the big top.