Sir Charles Mackerras, praised for his ongoing Telarc recordings of the Mozart symphonies, and for his brilliant interptetation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, now turns his attention to two orchestral masterpieces of nineteenth-century Russia.

Mackerras is Music Director of the Welshi National Opera and Principa Guest Conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, having preciously held positions with the Sydney Symphony and the English National Orchestra. A specialist in the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, it was he who arranged Sullivan’s music to create the ballet suite, Pineapple Poll.

Conductors have been testing their mettle against the powerfl climaxes and colorful orchestral tapesty of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade since the days of 78 R.P.M. Mackerras joins a long line of revered conductors—including Stokowski, Reiner, Bernstein, and Ansermet—who have committed their interpretations to recording.

The same composer’s Capriccio espagnol, composed only a year earlier, is an equally spectacular orchestral showpiece. Like Ravel’s Bolero, it came into being, in part, as an exercise in varied instrumentation. It won praise from no less a figure then Tchaikovsky, who called it “a masterpeice of orchestration.”