Tippett: Concerto for Double String Orchestra/Prokofiev: Visions Fugitives

This record is equally revealing as an introduction to a pleasing modern Bi’itish work and an exercise in international musical amity. Michael Tippett’s Concerto for Double StringOrchestra breathes a refreshing pastoral air and reaches points of lyric eloquence. With a Soviet orchestra seated on the left (where else?) and a British on the right, the stereo anti phony adds much to the music’s sense of life and vibrance. Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives, on the reverse, were originally piano pieces. In Rudolf Barshai’s imaginative transcriptions, they bring out all the virtuosity and vigor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra’s immensely skilled players.