Aside from having been published consecutively, there isn't much to link Prokofiev's Waltz Suite, Op. 110, with his Symphony No. 6, Op. 111. The waltzes are delightful, charming, elegiac, a little bit creepy, but always ingratiating. The Symphony No. 6 is powerful, lyrical, tragic, very scary, and always monumental. The only thing they really have in common is Prokofiev's skill as an orchestrator and his powerful idenity as a composer. In this 1994 recording by Theodore Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, both works are fully characterized and completely compelling. The waltzes are fey and affectionate with dancing rhythms and enchanting melodies. The symphony is massive and frightening with achingly beautiful themes and deeply tragic structures.

Beyond all argument, Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, Op. 10, is his biggest, his grandest, and his greatest symphony, a massive and monumental work that celebrates the triumph of all that is decent and virtuous over all that is depraved and immoral. But while Prokofiev's symphonic suite The Year 1941, Op. 90, is perhaps not his loudest and dumbest symphonic work, it is as bathetic, as bombastic, and as banal as the Symphony No. 5 is good, decent, and virtuous. The great thing about this disc is that both works are on it and both works get the best possible performances from Theodore Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

For those listeners for whom the savage sonorities and fierce architecture of Mahler's Sixth don't do it anymore, there's Prokofiev's Third, a vicious and malevolent symphony of ferocious savagery and appalling brutality. But that doesn't mean, however, that the orchestra and conductor can take it easy. It means that they have to keep tight control and firm command or the music will degenerate into mere pandemonium. But as Theodore Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine demonstrate, it is possible to be overwhelmingly violent and still make great music. The power and precision of the Ukraine's playing makes every barbed hook and sharpened point audible and the clarity and lucidity of Kuchar's conducting drives every aural agony deep into the listener's ears.

With one reservation, this 1995 recording by Theodore Kuchar conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine of the early orchestral music of Prokofiev is among the best ever made. Their performances of the late Romantic Dreams, Op. 6, and almost impressionist Autumn Sketch, Op. 8, are lush, warm, and radiantly colorful, but Kuchar keeps control of the balances and tempos so that they don't get soft and sentimental.

The two substantial works for violin and orchestra presented in this recording were both composed for major Russian soloists; the Concerto of 1940 for David Oistrakh and the Concerto-Rhapsody of 1961 for Leonid Kogan. Both draw on folk themes from the composer’s native Armenia and both are packed with emotion-laden Slavic moodiness.

It makes an ideal coupling having the Symphony No. 4 alongside the ballet score from which Prokofiev drew most of the material. The 1947 revision of the symphony, now generally preferred, is richer in both structure and instrumentation. Kuchar’s readings are both powerful and idiomatic, with crisply disciplined playing from the Ukraine Orchestra bringing home the weight and violence of much of the writing. These are performances to mach and eve outshine current rivals at whatever price; the Naxos recording is satisfying full-bodied, not least in vivid brass and percussion sounds, with the piano both clear and well integrated in the Symphony.

Most of the works by the two Catalan composers heard here – Joan Manén (1883–1971) and Marc Migó (b. 1993) – use material from their folk tradition, making the music fresh, immediate and direct, rather in the manner of Manuel de Falla. But there is also a loose connection with Vienna: Manén’s Violin ‘Concertino’ – an unusually modest label for a full-scale concerto – is something of a cousin to the Korngold Concerto; and Migó’s poignant Epitafi a Hans Rott was written in memory of a short-lived Austrian composer who was a close friend of Gustav Mahler.