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Great Conductors: Artur Rodzinski.

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Great Conductors: Artur Rodzinski

RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF: Russian Easter Overture; MOUSSORGSKY: Khovanshchina Prelude; RACHMANINOFF: Symphony 2; ROSSINI: William Tell Overture; WAGNER: Ride of the Valkyries; Magic Fire; Rhine Journey & Funeral Music; Tristan Prelude & Liebestod; STRAUSS: Dance of the 7 Veils; Death & Transfiguration

Royal Philharmonic; New York Philharmonic (Rachmaninoff); Columbia Symphony (Rossini); Chicago Symphony (Tristan); Philharmonia Orchestra (Strauss)/ Artur Rodzinski

EMI 75959 [2CD] 2:33

People tell me the classical music recording business is dead. If so, why do we keep getting fine new releases like this one? True, this isn't new at all--it's reissues--but maybe most of what needs to be said on records has been said, and the record collector is best served by reviving worthy material lost in the shuffle between the monaural and stereo eras and the transition from LP to CD. Rodzinski seems to have lost out both times: Many of his best recordings were made before 1950 in the "midfi" era, and most of his hi-fi remakes were done before stereo.

To a lesser degree than Matacic, whose legacy is greatly helped by the three Testament releases reviewed in Collections, Artur Rodzinski has been overshadowed simply because he was active in a period when there was a glut of great 20th Century conductors at or near peak form. Today, he'd be a podium lion of the Solti-Karajan-Giulini mold, with orchestras bending over backwards to get him as music director, but in his time he had...