Dramatic, positive performances, very much of the concert hall rather than the opera house—for instance the trumpet call in Leonora No. 3, slightly distanced, produces no frisson of anticipatory tension. I though Fidelio—which has real excitement at the end—the most successful piece, but Egmont is slightly disappointing. The recording is bright and clear in the current EMI digital fashion. Detail and balance cannot really be faulted, but the result has a 'gramophoney' perspective. A full-price collection of overtures needs something extra (for we are so often offered these works as fillers for symphonies) to justify its purchase and this issue fails to resonate in the memory in the way Klemperer, Jochum or Karajan can in this repertoire.'