Lehar was a more than worthy successor to the Strausses in the Viennese waltz tradition. But, by his time, the best waltz tunes were reserved for stage works. So, apart from the inevitable Gold und Silber, all the waltzes here are those that Lehar arranged on themes from his operettas. Wo die Lerche singt is probably the least widely known title—a tender First World War piece—while Giuditta, Lehar's most ambitious stage work which he wrote for the Vienna State Opera, is the one that one would least expect to yield forth material for a waltz medley. For those who know the work it is fascinating to hear how Lehar adapts ''Meine Lippen sie kussen so heiss'' and other themes.
Both these waltz medleys are enjoyable enough; but in all honesty they are not the essential Lehar of the earlier works—Gold und silber, Ballsirenen (on themes from Die lustige Witwe, of course, and here played with the reprise of Danilo's Maxim's theme in the coda that is omitted in all other recordings I know) and the three operetta waltzes on the second side—Der Graf von Luxemburg, Zigeunerliebe and Eva. Play these through and you have the essence of Lehar's genius. It would be enough to have such an astonishing sequence of ravishing, sensuous melodies. But what the digital recording brings out as never before is the remarkable texture of sound that Lehar wove into his scores—the ever-present countermelodies, the way the violins overlay the rest in ''Denn doppelt schmeckt's dem Bubchen'' in the Luxemburg waltz, the quivering strings, glockenspiel and woodwind introduction to Zigeunerliebe, the wind instruments tripping over each other in the Eva introduction, the strident brass in the final waltz theme of Zigeunerliebe. I could go on. I have already played this record over and over again, and Boskovsky's conducting and the contribution of the EMI engineers make Lehar's music here as near as I shall get to paradise in sound.'