COMPOSERS: Brahms,Johann Strauss II,Nicolai,Schubert & Komzák,Tchaikovsky,Weber,Ziehrer
LABELS: Decca Double Decca
WORKS: Works by Johann Strauss II, Ziehrer, Weber, Nicolai, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert & Komzák
PERFORMER: Vienna PO/Hans Knappertsbusch
CATALOGUE NO: 440 624-2 ADD (1958/60)
The striking thing about this compilation is less the music (an unstoppable flood of good tunes), more the conductor, Knappertsbusch, a legendary giant who experienced the Austro-German late Romantics at first hand. These emphatically weighted, old-world readings are spacious, the Luftpausen bewitching, with popular marches, waltzes and ballets transformed into tone poems with a Mahlerian bent. Knappertsbusch claimed never to have liked the recording medium – but this is all very impressive, with Brucknerian tempi that convince by their tension and gravity. Ates Orga
