There was a time some years ago when someone seemed to be climbing Everest almost every week. Now, in the recording studios, conductors and orchestras follow each other up and down Strauss's Alpine peak as if it were no more challenging than a hill. I rejoice in the belated acknowledgment of this work's quality both as music and as a vehicle for showing off an orchestra's virtuosity, while wondering about the economic rationale of all these duplications.
The attraction of this recording is the truly astonishing playing of the European Community Youth Orchestra. All sections cover themselves with glory, the strings above all. What an exciting sound the off-stage horns make, too, and the woodwind playing is full and mellow-toned. The performance amounts to a tribute to the conduc- tor, James Judd, who obviously drew a wholehearted response from these instrumentalists. He is content to take a superficial view of the work—none of the insights of a Haitink (Philips, 7/86) or Blomstedt (Decca, 6/90) here—and some of his tempos are painfully slow although, to be fair, these may have been directed by a need to accommodate the acoustics of Bolzano Cathedral where the performance was recorded live four years ago.
Because of this venue, the recording itself cannot compare with most of those currently in the catalogue. The double-basses' running triplets in the introduction are much too prominent, for example, and the organ's first quiet entry, usually a thrilling moment, is virtually inaudible. On the other hand, the Storm is impressive and the entry of the tenor tubas when the climbers are on the summit is another superb piece of theatre.'