Strauss: the Strauss Family.(Sound Recording Review)

Strauss: The Strauss Family. Willi Boskovsky, Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna. EMI 5 86019 2 (Six-disc set).

I read somewhere that the performers in his orchestras didn't particularly like working with conductor Willi Boskovsky, but he fashioned some of the most beautiful recordings of the Strausses ever made. First playing the violin with the Vienna Philharmonic, Boskovsky went on to lead and record the orchestra in Strauss waltzes in the 1950s and 60s, and audiences adored him, which in the end was all that mattered. His Decca recordings from those early years are still the yardsticks by which all Strauss waltzes must now be measured. By the early 70s he was recording for EMI with the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna, and he re-recorded much of the major Strauss repertoire for them. Then, when digital entered the scene in the 80s, he re-recorded them yet again! What we have in this six-disc EMI box set is a collection of some seventy-nine of Strauss's most famous waltzes recorded by Boskovsky with the Johann Strauss Orchestra in the 70s (analogue) and 80s (digital).

Personally, I find Boskovsky's digital recordings slightly more sprightly and open than his analogue recordings with the same orchestra a decade before. Fortunately, most the recordings chosen for this collection are from the later digital group. The digital sound is a little less warm and slightly less full than the analogue sound, but it is more detailed and carries with it no obvious digital brightness or edginess, so sonic differences among the various pieces on the six discs is practically nil. More important, all the performances are light and spontaneous, a total delight in every way, and except that the Strauss Orchestra ...