I had great difficulty here getting beyond the relative crudeness of both recording and execution. Given the quality of competition, you may see no point in reading on. For those who care to, however, I'll elaborate a little. All four symphonies were set down during 1978 and with the exception of the Second, which for some reason sounds fuller and kinder on the ear than the others, the deficiencies are fairly consistent: a dryish cast overall with shrill, thin string tone and strident-toned trumpets which savage the texture at every key tutti. I greatly miss the sound of a well-nourished bass line, and the horns throughout (yes, even in the Rhenish) are murky and unfocused.
'Heavy-handed' might best sum up Rozhdestvensky's approach to these scores. The fiery allegros of the First and Second Symphonies are at least possessed of an earthy vigour, which is more than can be said for the Third and Fourth. Laboured affairs, both of them, with tempos that are heavy without ever feeling rhythmic. The outer movements signally fail to ignite: that wonderful sun-breaking transition into the finale of the Fourth goes for absolutely nothing, and if that does not come off the page, what, I am bound to ask, does? The Rhenish is similarly earthbound, its opening movement lacking both the requisite impetus (my thoughts turn to the sheerly exhilarating Bernstein on DG) and/or tonal splendour. And rarely can the inner movements have sounded so bloated and lethargic, either. But enough said, I think. For what it's worth, I have one small textural detail relating to the Fourth Symphony first movement: for reasons best known to himself, Rozhdestvensky ruins the effect of those exciting little woodwind skirls in the main body of the allegro (e.g. 7'36'') by adding trumpets, as if we haven't heard enough of them. Sawallisch (EMI) remains the best all-round recommendation for these symphonies at present, but I await the second instalment of Levine's set with the Berlin Philharmonic (DG). I much enjoyed his muscular accounts of the Second and Third.'