Conductor Peter Hirsch, who worked with the composer and Claudio Abbado on the premiere,has thoroughly done his homework in this clear as a bell performance.
Not only is the performance itself lucid and attune to the all those essential,subliminal,nuanced details, but the recorded sound is crystalline,ideal.
Also,the packaging is handsomely mounted with complete listening score, commentaries,history etc,making this the quintessential recording and preferable to the out of print EMI version .
This is by no means a casual listen or something one comes to terms with in a single hearing, but like “La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura”,with repeated exposure,the complexities,immense struggles and elongated silences give way to an emotionally rewarding, intellectually stimulating, uncompromisingly poetic,provocative, yet exquisite soundworld of diaphanous pink and white, yellow and blue timbres.
Alfred Eaker 