London Symphony Orchestra/Valery Gergiev LSO Live LSO 0682 (2 CDs)

Politics got in the way of Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet, with the premiere being finally given in Brno in 1938 rather than at the Kirov in Leningrad, for which it was written, or at the Bolshoi in Moscow, which took it over.

And dancers complained about its danceability. The first two orchestral suites, with changes to the orchestration, were actually played before the full ballet, and it’s those suites that keep the work before the public in the concert hall. The ever- adventurous Valery Gergiev offered the full original ballet in London in November 2008, substituting a nice, springy energy in places where other conductors focus on sonic spectacle, and always finding the lyricism in this most lyrical of mid-20th-century works. www.tinyurl.com/ctth2r