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D major, K.504. "Prague". Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Willem van Otterloo. Philips Q GBL5529 (12 in., 16s. 11d. plus 5s. 7d. P.T.).

Woodwind connoisseurs may find it convenient to have Mozart's youthful Bassoon Concerto on a seven-inch disc—though they will have to turn over just as the second movement is getting under way. Leo Czermak produces a nice solid, sturdy sound, more like Archie Camden than Gwydion Brooke on the...

Scheherazade here gets neither the superb orchestral playing it wants nor the sumptuous recorded sound. The dreadfully dull playing must presumably be ascribed to Fournet who plods through the score, faithfully but without the slightest spark of imagination that I can detect. (And who permitted...

These are dapper performances of Rossini's four longest overtures, brilliantly recorded. Whether they have quite the precision that Toscanini and Fricsay managed to get from greater orchestras is another matter, but at any rate they are not without eloquence and wit. The opening of William Tell...

Tidy-minded Schubertians will be pleased by the appearance of this record which does not clash with the new Beecham versions of the third and fifth symphonies. SchmidtIsserstedt's account of the little C major symphony is greatly preferable to its only current rival on disc, and this must be a...

I have only just written about these extremely charming and elegant performances, and stereo adds to them only an enhancing aura and a certain extra tautness and control of texture (this may be illusory). Beecham's tempo in the slow movement of No. 5 is unusually quick, and I begin to wonder if...

One of the lesser crimes of the Nazis was that they caused Shostakovich to spoil his Seventh Symphony. In 1941, the thirty-fiveyear-old composer's native city of Leningrad was besieged by the German armies, and he insisted on remaining there with the defenders. When not engaged in firefighting,...