Symphonies nos 1 and 3 etc.

"What is clearly in evidence is the composer's astounding mastery of orchestral colour and his melodic breadth. The Warsaw performers, under Antoni Wit, a Szymanowski conductor of the highest rank, are clearly utterly within the spirit of the music: it would be hard to imagine more convincing performances ... These are the recordings to have".

"Hear the passionate playing and exceptional musical understanding of the Warsaw Philharmonic under their general and artistic director ... It would take significantly greater financial outlay to find anything better than this, and even then the differences would be marginal".

"Best known and most convincing of the three featured works is the Third Symphony (1916), which Gardner directs in sympathetic style ... Ben Johnson's fine-grained English tenor delivers the text in cleanly articulated German [in Love songs of Hafiz] ... The overheated First Symphony has its exotic touches ... Reservations have more to do with the inconsistency of the oeuvre itself".

"The works here reflects influences from many nationalities ... Ben Johnson, whose relatively lean voice ... is very much responsive to the text's meaning".

"Being a natural inheritor of Scriabinesque exoticism, Szymanowski is bound to bring out the best in Scriabin's most imaginative interpreters, which is why Valery Gergiev proves such a convincing interpreter of both works. He draws excellent playing from the London Symphony Orchestra".

"Orfeo's new offering is a strong-willed and throughly convincing affair, bringing performances of authority, intelligence and passion from Skride ... What might well finally persuade any prospective buyer ... is the excellence of the orchestral playing under Storgårds, which is as eloquently supportive and idiomatic as anyone could wish. The recording itself, made in the splendid Danish Radio Concert Hall in Copenhagen, is magnificent".