Tchaikovsky composed his First Symphony just after graduating from the St Petersburg Conservatory and he retained a special fondness for the work throughout his life. While the seeds of Tchaikovsky’s talent as a descriptive composer can be found in these evocative ‘Winter Daydreams’, his Second Symphony, the ‘Little Russian’ looks more towards the nationalist aesthetic of The Mighty Five in its genial use of folk melodies, resulting in a work whose infectious cheerfulness and imaginative skill in orchestration is unsurpassed throughout Tchaikovsky’s oeuvre. These classic Vox recordings by the Utah Symphony Orchestra were originally released in 1974, and remain much admired to this day for conductor Maurice Abravanel’s fresh and direct interpretations.