COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Dutton Laboratories
WORKS: Symphony No. 86; Symphony No. 4
CATALOGUE NO: CDLX 7008 ADD 76:00 mins
Images of restraint and gentleness helped soften the focus on Bruno Walter’s later years, but sample Dutton Labs’ pre-war Walter anthology and you confront a very different animal: impulsive, speedy and with a rigorous athleticism that’s very much the current fashion.
The transfers, by the way, shave away surface noise without impinging on the music content. Walter was expelled from Austria by the Nazis, although – luckily for us – he survived to tell the tale.