The Bernstein Century project is a welcome development, if only because the LP originals of so many of these releases were marred by inferior surfaces which distracted us listeners enough to effectively mask their considerable musical merits. It was easy to forget, back in the late '60s, in our enthusiasm over foreign product - and especially foreign pressings - just how wide Bernstein's grasp of the repertoire was.

And he did nearly everything well, if not surpassingly so. Haydn and Mozart, Nielsen, Shostakovich and Gershwin. Yes, and Beethoven, Debussy and Mahler. We were so caught up by Bernstein's contribution to the Mahler revolution, it was easy to overlook his sureness of touch elsewhere.

At any rate, "Celebrating the recorded legacy of Leonard Bernstein" (as the CD stickers urge) is much less difficult now that we don't have to deal with the old Columbia pressings. These three CDs, actually, derive from the period before Columbia entered its aural grate/haze days. All of these performances date between 1958 and 1964, and all of the earlier recordings (the so-called "6 eye" Columbias) are getting as hard to find as the coveted RCA "shaded dogs" and Mercurys. As added incentive for collectors, the Beethoven Seventh has never been previously released on CD.

Let me say first that this Beethoven First Symphony is among the best in a very crowded field. The recording, too, is admirably natural and well balanced. The fierceness, which so often spoiled one's enjoyment of '60s Columbia LPs, is nowhere evident. The Seventh Symphony is also a fine performance, but in an even more competitive field is more controversial in its claims on the consumer. One cannot help but compare Bernstein with another performance by the New York Philharmonic - the great Toscanini performance from 1936. The latter has been called - frequently - the greatest recorded performance of any Beethoven symphony, so that we can hardly avoid the comparison. Bernstein, in the first three movements, does quite well. The last movement, that movement which Wagner called "the apotheosis of the dance", is more problematic. The way Bernstein clips the rhythm, I cannot help but picture any ambitious closet terpsichoreans collapsing in a tangle of limbs. More importantly, the inexorable momentum that Toscanini and Reiner build to Dionysian climax is vitiated by Bernstein's approach. The word "sluggish" occurred to me on more than one occasion over several listenings. Not the feeling one wants to get at a bacchanal.

The Debussy performances are also better than average, particularly Jeux which competes favourably with Boulez, Baudo, and Haitink. La Mer lacks the Gallic nuance of Munch or the cool plushness of Karajan, and the Faun, while predictably lush, is the least successful as a recording. For many of us, that the Nocturnes are without the final Sirènes will put this Debussy collection completely out of competition.

I had never heard this Mahler Fourth Symphony before. Let me say right off that's its up there with the best I know, and that includes the Szell/Cleveland, another Columbia recording from a few years later which got much more attention in the music press. In one respect it surpasses many otherwise excellent performances, perhaps including Szell. That is in the choice of soprano soloist for the finale, Reri Grist. Her purity of tone and unstudied naturalness seem to me far more persuasive than the contributions of many more famous sopranos. The recording is exemplary, with more clarity and immediacy than the Debussy CD. Bernstein's Mahler Four carried me from beginning to end, with none of that sense of episodic fragmentation that sometimes obtruded into the consciousness during the Beethoven Seventh, or even during La Mer.