Testament's remastering is a marginal improvement over Decca's deleted transfers of these early 1950s Strauss recordings. Even in their day, they faced strong competition. For example, you could buy Toscanini's Don Quixote, Karajan's marvelous 1951 Till Eulenspiegel (featuring Dennis Brain's incomparable opening horn solo), and Reiner's blistering 1954 Chicago Don Juan. All three offer better sound and more polished orchestral playing than the Viennese musicians delivered for Krauss. Moreover, Pierre Fournier's courtly Don Quixote can be heard to better advantage in his remakes with Karajan (DG) and Szell (Sony), especially the latter. Any of the above recordings, and also Kempe's benchmark Dresden versions from the '70s, cost less than this reissue (the label retails for full price in the U.S.). All in all, this is the least interesting volume in Testament's Krauss-does-Strauss retrospective.

--Jed Distler