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Decca's new Capriccio Italien opens with wonderfully resonant trumpet-calls (surely far more impressive than the Italian Royal Cuirassiers ever could have made them sound in their barracks for Tchaikovsky's benefit !) ; and indeed it continues throughout with recording of a very high standard....

Deutsche Grammophon's insistence on offering us as so-inch LPs the music that other companies present, ten shillings more cheaply, on MP, means that one must think twice before buying. The Flying Dutchman Overture is surely now established as one MP side.

"Album of Orchestral Favourites" is the full title : to describe a single MP disc as an album is to have an over-acute sense of the historical, not all the pieces are, in origin, orchestral, and certainly not all of them are favourites. But they very soon might be, played and recorded like this...

These are the third and fourth movements from Tchaikovsky's Serenade for strings ; the same orchestra and conductor have previously given us the second movement on a 4.5, the famous waltz. I found the quality very good, though I would really sooner hear this music played by a larger body of...

Although it runs into stiff competition, this is in fact rather a good record, richly recorded and eloquently played (especially the Tristan side). It also affords the only convenient way of buying the Tristan Prelude without having to embark on a whole 12-inch LP Wagner concert. A.P.