The Fifth Symphony (with the Violin Concerto) is the Miaskovsky work I would propose to 'unbelievers' and to those curious about the composer. Neither the Cello Concerto nor the famed Twenty-First matches its power of utterance. Unfortunately Svetlanov takes the work at a lumbering pace which, although revealing details often subsumed in drama, rather saps the work's power except in the case of the Baba Yaga (Liadov) brevity of the folksy Allegro Burlando (III). The worst effect comes in the Allegro risoluto (IV) which for most of its 10.52 sounds tired. This is certainly the best recorded sound and the orchestral contribution is matchless even in subtlety. Just listen to the long diminuendo at the end of the first movement. However as a whole its incredibly distended 44.05 just does not cohere as it should. My preference would be for the 1980s Olympia (OCD133) of Konstantin Ivanov in which the music moves with urgency (36.00) and is given a dramatic cutting edge. Only slightly behind comes the Balkanton CD 030078 at c 38.00 but you will have your work cut out finding this. It is worth it though. This has the work played by the Plovdiv PO/Dimiter Manolov. Then there is the Marco Polo 8.223499 - BBCPO/Edward Downes. This is the quickest of all at just short of 36.00 and is much easier to get.

The Fifth is the sort of work that would have you egging the orchestra on in front of your loudspeakers for all the world like Beecham bellowing exhortation in his live BBCSO performance of the Sibelius Second. Think of Svetlanov's interpretation as the counterpart of Bernstein's 1980s Enigma. You will learn new things about the work but you will miss its essential character.

The Twelfth Symphony was premiered in Moscow under the baton of Albert Coates who paid scant regard to the composer's tempi. Illness kept the composer from the premiere - but perhaps fear of suffering at the hands of Coates what Rachmaninov had suffered from Glazunov at the first performance of the First Symphony had more to do with it. This is in the usual three movements rather than the Fifth's four. It has been recorded once before on Marco Polo with Stankovsky and the Czecho-Slovak RSO (8.223302). A dancing and sometimes poetic Slavonic folksiness (part Copland, part Glazunov, part Rimsky, part Bliss at 7.40 of the finale) plays through the pages of the big first movement rather paralleling the Eighteenth and Twenty-Sixth Symphonies and the third movement of the Fifth. The three movements have a programme appended: i. before the October Revolution, ii. the Struggle for new life and iii. Victory over the Kulak (wealthy landed classes) supremacy. Levon Hakobian attributes the bleak pessimism of the Thirteenth Symphony to Miaskovsky's shame over the political compromises he made over the Twelfth. If there is a problem it is with the gauche programme not so much with the music which is alive with a well-lit imagination though bombast puts in an appearance once too often in the Presto Agitato (II). Listen to the wind and string shivers at the end of the first movement for a few of the strengths and to the plainchant earnestness of the Allegro festivo (III, 3.40). Svetlanov makes more of this than Stankovsky. It is not top-notch Miaskovsky but it is a not unattractive work if you are into 20th century celebratory Russian nationalism. It escapes the accidie of the conductor's approach to the Fifth Symphony.

Rob Barnett