Two third symphonies make an arresting release from Avie Records: Robert Schumann's in E-flat, Op. 97, sometimes called "the Rhenish," and Op. 62 in A by Hans Gal, a long-lived Austrian-British composer who died in 1987. The latter is a premiere recording that will introduce many listeners to Gal, who combines in this work skill at orchestration with a tendency to bring a complex view of structure to bear. The three-movement work concludes with a purposeful, but often blithe, virtuoso finale for the excellent British orchestra, in residence at Stratford-upon-Avon, conducted by Kenneth Woods.

Woods shows his luminous interpretive vision in the Schumann, which blasts away at the cobwebs of the composer's reputation as a dull, borderline inept, orchestrator. As Schumann's final of four works in the symphonic idiom, Op. 97 is full of energy and inspiration. Never has the outline of Schumann's composition been clearer. Woods shapes exemplary phrasing from Orchestra of the Swan; the clarity does not amount to some kind of antiseptic dissection, but something more at the opposite extreme: a new lease on life for a familiar masterwork.