Karabits and the Staatskapelle offer powerful and well-balanced accounts, taking the works on their own terms and drawing out the best they have to offer…In the Symphony’s Magnificat, the two choruses step aboard and soar, as if a natural part of the orchestra. Recorded sound is warm and pleasing.

Karabits is a master of both the affect and the effect. His control over the orchestra is ironclad. Passages in unison, where a string section, violas or cellos, play by themselves, they are so together they sound less like multiple players than like a single player amplified to sound like many. It takes meticulous rehearsal and precise direction from the podium for an orchestra to play and sound like that...it’s the best orchestral disc of the year I’ve heard, and it may be hard, if not impossible, to beat.

Given the provenance of the orchestra, it is appropriate that all three pieces here were written whilst Liszt was living in Weimar...As pieces written for gala processions of artists go, I must say I found [the Künstlerfestzug] surprisingly interesting: it opens pretty much as expected, with crashing chords and brass fanfares, but I was pleased that Karabits keeps it light enough that it never tips over into tedious pomposity.