A good performance of the First Symphony, with a strong feeling of chamber music to it and a remarkable attention to, and occasionally an exaggeration of, the quieter dynamic markings. The Symphony No. 3 is brilliantly played and very vividly characterized. I was particularly struck by Rozhdestvensky’s use of solo instead of tutti strings in the slow section (with what justification I have no idea , but it is poignantly effective) and by his powerful dramatization of those huge orchestral recitatives that prepare for the choral finale: they are massively and balefully eloquent, qualities that rivals miss by taking them very fast.
