“The opening of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is immediately arresting as the brass pummels out a fateful summons. The strings respond in soulful terms, and when the music becomes animated we are thrown into the midst of emotional turmoil, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky the alchemist of an inspired performance that graced the Leeds Festival in 1979. Tchaikovsky’s great score, its accents hammered out, its balletic motions subtly turned, is here given a fervent on-the-wing account that compels attention.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra responds to its then Chief Conductor with focussed and expressive resources, audibly hanging onto Rozhdestvensky’s capricious baton in the measured but tensile first movement, its passionate peaks charted with symphonic surety.” --Classical Source online - Sep 2011
