STRAUSS - FRITZ REINER

Those who have been following RCA's Fritz Reiner Collection will know what to expect from these outstanding digital remasters. It is astonishing to reflect that this earlier of Reiner's two Chicago recordings of Also sprach Zarathustra was made on March 8th, 1954 in stereo when Toscanini was still (just) recording in low-fl in New York's Carnegie Hall. The sound may be tonally fierce by current standards (less so than many oftpraised Mercury reissues) but the balance is fully acceptable, with the first and second violins set close to the listener (and the microphones) on either side of the podium, and the basses hard left. By the time of taping the Bourgeois gentilhomme suite and Rosenkavalier waltzes, Reiner had adopted a more conventional layout, and the engineering seems a degree or two more 'modern', capturing the distinctive ambience of the hall. Reiner's 1954 Also sprach is arguably more characteristic than his 1962 RCA remake (7/88). That is to say, it is even more intense an