Reissues Reviewed by Malcolm Hayes

Jewels of French Ballet

Excerpts from Coppélia, Les Sylphides etc

Alto ALC 1386 (1960/62) 79:00 mins

High-rev performances from Georg Solti and the Royal Opera House Orchestra – Offenbach’s Gaieté parisienn scintillates – plus creamier Coppélia from Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Phil. ★★★★

Joseph Marx Orchestral Works, Vol. 2

Naxos 8.573832 (2003) 75:11 mins

The style of this Graz-born 20th-century composer is attractive, like Tippett heard through an Austrian filter. Quality Bochum Symphony Orchestra playing; overcautious conducting from Steven Sloane. ★★★

Moyzes Symphonies Nos 9 & 10

Naxos 8.573654 (1994-95) 69:59 mins

This Slovakian composer’s idiom resembles a more modernistic, lower-octane Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 is the most convincing here. Decent, if rather earthbound Slovak Radio Symphony accounts. ★★★

Respighi Roman Trilogy

Alto ALC 1396 (1955-61) 76:26 mins

Fritz Reiner’s Pines and Fountains, with stellar Chicago SO playing, are wonderfully powerful, detailed, and unrushed, with fine remastered sound. Warning: in Church Windows, stereo balance is direly skewed leftwards. ★★★★★