After having long assumed that Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture struck manuscript like lightning out of the blue, it came as a shock (and still does) to encounter the 1869 original, so foursquare in part, especially when compared with the magnificent final revision of 1880. This new CD under Dalia Atlas hasn't quite the dynamism of Geoffrey Simon's pioneering Chandos recording with the LSO (although, in truth, neither version is exactly the last word in orchestral precision), but it does make a strong and instructive case for Tchaikovsky's partially effective first thoughts. The context, too, is instructive. Svendsen's essay dates from roughly between the 'two' Tchaikovskys (that is, the late 1870s); it's a solid, outgoing piece, full of bland but appealing melodic invention, and Atlas surveys its pages with what sounds like sincere enthusiasm.
The concert opens with Bellini's trim, Rossinian I Capuleti ed i Montecchi Overture, a bright and undemanding curtain-raiser and the best-played piece on the disc. The final item, Kabalevsky's Romeo and Juliet selection, suggests, like the Tchaikovsky, an obvious comparison; not, this time, with a subsequent work by the same composer, but with an earlier ballet by a more celebrated compatriot. However, Kabalevsky's Romeo is quite different from Prokofiev's: brighter, considerably less intense and—dare I say?—much less original. But it is well-crafted, expertly orchestrated music and its thematic ideas are extremely pleasing. Atlas captures the score's atmosphere (although Kitaenko on Olympia (CD) OCD147 is more dramatic) and her concert has been well engineered. An enterprising if hardly earth-shattering programme.'