The Concerto for Orchestra, completed almost 30 years before the symphony, is comparatively conservative in style, but it has ample substance to match its panache. It also remains a formidable challenge to an orchestra, and it is fascinating to compare these versions by the two giants of the Great Lakes. Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra (Decca) are nothing if not bold: there's a brashness in their response to Lutoslawski's agressivo marking at the start which Barenboim fastidiously avoids, and more bravado elsewhere: for example, at the beginning of the third movement, where Barenboim is closer to crotchet=60 than to the 70 marked in the score. As with the symphony, Barenboim's strength is the large-scale creation and sustaining of tension, and the Erato recording contains the heavy climaxes without draining them of clarity or impact. Decca's Cleveland recording was not much liked by the ''Sounds in Retrospect'' team (6/90), although to my mind the sheer excitement and conviction of Dohnanyi's reading more than compensates for the element of artificiality in the recorded sound. Given that Dohnanyi is rather too earnest in the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, however, Erato's new all-Lutoslawski coupling is undoubtedly the one to have.'

Arnold Whittall, Gramophone 8/1993