VADIM SALMANOV (1912-1978): Symphonies No. 1 in D Minor (rec. March 20, 1957), No. 2 in G (Sept. 9, 1960), No. 3 in A Minor (May 24, 1964) and No. 4 in B Minor (Jan. 28, 1977 - stereo).

Description: Those of you who still have the Melodiya box-set of these symphonies can finally retire them. Odd that no new recordings of them were ever made; these broadcasts of live recordings (the last three are probably the premiere performances) are all we have. Shostakovich is not as big a shadow here as he is in Weinberg; Salmanov even uses a twelve-tone row for material in the first movement of the Third. Still, the First is a "war symphony" even though it took Salmanov until 1952 to write it and the Second (1959) is the most colorful and the one you'd most like to hear in a modern recording ("Song of the Forest", "Call of Nature", "At Sunset" and "...and the Forest Sings" are its evocative movement titles). The Third (1963) is the most psychologically inward one, tense and uneasy, often dissonant but the Fourth (1976) is much brighter, with recognizable Russian elements and solos for various instruments. 2 CDs. Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra; Yevgeni Mravinsky.