Waltzes.

Strauss, Johann II: Waltzes. Willi Boskovsky, the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna. EMI Double Forte 7243 5 74311 2 5 (2-disc set).

According to everything I've read about Willi Boskovsky, his orchestras didn't particularly like him as a conductor. From playing violin with the Vienna Philharmonic he went to leading it in Strauss waltzes in the 1950s and audiences adored him, which is all that mattered. His Decca recordings from those early days are still the yardsticks by which all Strauss waltzes are now measured. By the early seventies he was recording for EMI with the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna, and he re-recorded most of the major Strauss repertoire for them. Then, when digital entered the scene, he re-recorded them yet again! What we have in this EMI Double Forte album is a collection of nineteen of Strauss's most famous waltzes from the early eighties.

Interestingly, these digital recordings are more sprightly and open than his analogue recordings with the same orchestra had been a decade before. The digital sound is less warm and less full, true, but the sound is more detailed and carries with it little obvious digital brightness or edginess. More important, the performances themselves are a fraction quicker and more spontaneous, a total delight in every way, and almost matching his Decca renderings.