Si Raphaël Kubelík a été un pionner de l'enregistrement "Hi-Fi" avec ces mêmes tableaux et le Chicago Symphony (cf. plus bas), il s'agit ici de sa meilleure version et  une des plus intéressantes de la discographie. Malheureusement, une modification de la durée des droits d'auteur a rendu ces disques quasi-illégaux, cette édition étant de toute façon limitée au départ. Discographie comparée du 14/4/2002.

R. Kubelík has recorded many standards of Russian music. This is, more than his earlier version in studio with the Chicago symphony, one of the best version of this work. No longer available. Compared listening (in French).

From the Chicago Tribune a recall of his Chicago period :
At age 36, he came to a post that would never again be offered to anyone so young. He was at once a conductor, composer, instrumentalist, crusader and political activist. That he left Chicago amid petty attacks and returned without acrimony, becoming one of the city's most beloved guest conductors, only affirmed his human and artistic stature. In Kubelik's first season with the CSO, he conducted 67 concerts at Orchestra Hall, 12 radio broadcasts from area high schools and 15 programs in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. No permanent conductor after him gave as many performances during as little time. Throughout his tenure, Kubelik and the orchestra committed 12 works to monaural recordings that justly became famous for their performances and realism of sound. The accounts of seven pieces--Brahms, Dvorak, Mozart and Tchaikovsky symphonies plus Modeste Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" in the orchestration by Maurice Ravel--had their first CD release a year ago in Japan. Mercury Records' domestic issue next month will include Bela Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Bedrich Smetana's complete "Ma Vlast" and the Mussorgsky-Ravel. From his first press conference, Kubelik promised repertory with areas of special concentration, including seldom-played pieces by familiar composers, contemporary music with an emphasis on works by Americans and various timely commemorations. He provoked criticism simply by keeping his word. Kubelik presented in Chicago 66 premieres, ranging from masterworks by Bach, Mozart and Haydn to such now-familiar modern scores as the Bartok Music for Strings, Aaron Copland's Third Symphony, Leos Janacek's Sinfonietta and Francis Poulenc's Organ Concerto. Kubelik later said, "Most everything I played I liked. But I also had (a responsibility) to play things that were not to my liking. As a music director, one cannot choose only what one likes. One sometimes has to sacrifice oneself and play certain things one thinks are important for the public to hear." As happened with Leopold Stokowski in Philadelphia, critics approved neither the quantity nor the quality of Kubelik's contemporary selections, though the most challenging pieces he led were from early decades of the century--Arnold Schoenberg's "Five Pieces for Orchestra," Alban Berg's Violin Concerto--and his later choices should not have given informed listeners trouble. In any event, Kubelik was undeterred in his crusade for unfamiliar music. He presented symphonies by Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler well before they became part of the standard repertory in the United States. And unlike some conductors today who perform contemporary pieces only to gain support for themselves in the composers' countries of origin, Kubelik brought new Czech, French and German music to America and took the ultra-American symphonies of Roy Harris to Europe. Another of his adventures--even today virtually unknown and, therefore, unsung--was to make the first experimental stereo recordings with a North American orchestra since the mid-1930s. Parts of the Mercury sessions for "Ma Vlast," Mozart's "Prague" Symphony, Schoenberg's "Five Pieces" and Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber" were also recorded privately in stereo, and the sound of the master tapes is phenomenal.