While continuing to search the remotest corners of the late 19th Century
on my hands and knees, happy to find even the most insignificant speck of
glitter or petal of rose, once non-chalantly cast away as if the store of
good melodies were endless...(sigh); I came across a 3 CD set of Jarvi
conducting the suites of Rimsky Korsakov on Chandos.

Besides the perennial favorites, "The Golden Cockerel," "Flight of the
Bumble Bee," and "Procession of the Nobles" from "Mlada;" Jarvi and the
Scottish National present some lesser-known but wonderfully evocative
delights, including "May Night--Overture," "The Snow Maiden," "Tsar
Saltan," "Christmas Eve," and "Invisible City of Kitezh."

Potent and sultry melodies abound, and I would like to single out Christmas
Eve, for its splashes of orchestral color that look forward to Debussy,
Ravel, and Stravinsky; the "barrel adrift in the sea" section of "Tsar,"
with its string and harp 'pings' that remind one of wind-driven raindrops
striking the face; and the opening of "Invisible City, where a chorale is
blurred by oscillating strings to suggest the magical, half-lit world of
Nature.

Good stuff.

John Smyth