For price, repertoire, and performance, this disc speaks for itself. After all, Rudolf Kempe’s Strauss cycle remains one of the touchstone recording projects of all time, and its virtues are well known to Classicstoday.com readers (type Q704 in Search Reviews). Yet this release also raises questions about EMI’s reissue agenda. The Tod und Verklärung and Dance of the Seven Veils appeared with Ein Heldenleben in EMI’s Great Recordings of the Century series, at midprice (see David Hurwitz’s review by typing Q5874 in Search Reviews). Here are the two pieces again, at budget price, with Also Sprach Zarathustra and Till Eulenspiegel replacing Heldenleben. So if you want all these works with Kempe, you have to buy two discs, and duplicate material in the process. This is ridiculous. Your best bet is to pony up the money for EMI’s eight-CD Kempe/Strauss budget boxed set. Then you get everything and never have to worry about Kempe/Strauss reissues of reissues of reissues, past, present, or future. Should you insist on a single disc, re-read my first sentence. [2/22/2003]
