The CD bears an imprint that reads "Tchaikovsky Hall Debut Concert". However, nowhere in the booklet is there any indication of just who's debut this is: the pianist? the conductor? the orchestra? (Surely not the hall itself.) In any event, the evening featured an unusual program, beginning with Tatsuya Nagashima's stirring performance of Beethoven's Emperor concerto. Nagashima goes all out for grandiosity in his big-boned reading, playing with an improvisatory quality that unearths premonitions of Franz Liszt's concertos. Unfortunately, Nagashima's full-fleshed approach is not always matched by the rather prosaic accompaniment of Vakhtang Jordania and the Russian Federal Orchestra, suffering as they do from an anemic string tone in the first movement's extended orchestral passages.

The orchestral contribution improves for the Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake excerpts, though in terms of intonation the oboe is less than dead-on in the latter. Vakhtang creates some unusual balances, allowing us to hear precisely how Tchaikovsky constructs his bewitching woodwind sonorities (particularly so in Sleeping Beauty's Introduction). He also has a tendency to overcook the music with slow tempos, but he's nothing if not earnest about his Tchaikovsky, which is refreshing after so many conductors who treat these pieces as mere "lollipops". Dynamically, the sound is shockingly limited, given the recording's 1998 origin.

--Victor Carr Jr.