Russian romantic music performed like this in a 1992 recording by Antoni Wit and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra is the reason the Naxos label came out of nowhere to the kind of well-deserved prominence that makes ‘budget music’ seem an irrelevant misnomer.
Tchaikovsky’s great Symphony Number 5 is played with exceptional verve. The stirring Andante tempo that predominates in three of the four movements comes off majestically. If Tchaikovsky teetered on the edge of madness, he managed to transpose whatever chaos gusted in his soul into memorable late romantic lines that occasionally make one almost shudder. This fifth symphony set him up for the unforgettable sixth (‘Pathetique’), in which emotion burst whatever dam was still standing as he wrote this, its precursor.
The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra plays large under Wit’s baton. It is difficult a more compelling rendering by any orchestra.
On this recording, ‘Storm’ comes off as a noble encore, slightly dwarfed by the shadow in which it stands but easy to appreciate nonetheless.
Tchaikovsky wrote that he considered his Fifth Symphony a failure. How happy a thing that we are so often mistaken about the work of our own hands.
Canter Bridge 
Leave a Reply