Giulini's 1979 Los Angeles recording of the Eroica was—still is—a remarkable affair: as spacious as Klemperer's famously far-flung 1959 recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (3/62—nla) yet more spare, the music as gaunt as an El Greco Christ. Now we have the Milanese remake which is slower still, but in a softer focus. How much this is Giulini's and the orchestra's doing and how much the engineers' I would not care to say. But it was strange to find a clearer, cleaner, more finely chiselled image coming from my 1979 LP than from this new 20-bit super digital 'high definition' CD. Unfortunately, the reading needs the kind of terrible clarity of utterance we have on Giulini's Los Angeles recording. The vision remains, but here its impact is too much modified by what appears to be an all-embracing generosity of mood and spirit.'