Nearly all of RCA's releases in its Red Seal Classic Library series have been reissues. That's fine: RCA has many superlative recordings in its vaults, and reissuing them is the appropriate means to keep them in circulation. But this particular disc of Grieg's orchestral music performed by the
Royal Philharmonic under the direction of
Yuri Temirkanov has never been released before and is thus new to circulation. When it was recorded is anybody's guess -- the notes fail to mention recording dates -- but the evidence suggest the early '90s, the same period in which
Temirkanov recorded the Tchaikovsky with the same ensemble for the same label. Why these recordings were not released at the time is harder to guess: at the time, not only was
Temirkanov's star rising, but the whole classical recording industry was experiencing an enormous increase in business. More to the point, however, these are tremendous performances: strong, sensitive, soulful, and masterful. At the time,
Temirkanov was clearly one of the best of the younger generation of Russian conductors with a powerful but flexible beat, a muscular but supple balance, and complete control over every aspect of orchestral music making. The
Royal Philharmonic plays like the most brilliantly colorful and heroically muscular orchestra in England and it follows its Russian-born conductor like the Light Brigade at Balaclava. But beyond even the performances, it is the order of the music that makes this disc so noteworthy. In his selection of music from Peer Gynt,
Temirkanov shapes a musically and dramatically satisfying whole, something that very, very few other arrangements have ever done. The remaining works on the disc -- the Norwegian Dances and the Wedding Procession -- are also superb, but the Peer Gynt all by itself justifies the release of this disc.