Yet another recording of Eine Alpensinfonie and yet another good one. Collins have given Fruhbeck de Burgos a clear, natural sound, not overwhelmingly powerful or close-miked, but always in perspective and capturing all, or nearly all, the detail. The recording of the timpani and the wind-machine at the start of ''The storm'', for example, is particularly fine, and ''The storm'' itself receives one of the most musical treatments on record, dramatic and graphic—one can almost see the lightning flash across the sky—and is recorded without the engineers having apparently decided to achieve new decibel levels.
While this performance as a whole does not displace Blomstedt (Decca) or Haitink (Philips) in my affections, it can be strongly recommended and offers better value than either Haitink or Karajan (DG) in having another major Strauss work on the disc. Fruhbeck de Burgos's interpretation is wholly poetic, stressing the sheer beauty of the scoring, as in the ''Entry into the wood'', and the lightness of touch characteristic of much of the work. At the beginning of track 6 you can sample the scherzo-like delicacy of the LSO's playing and the oboist's superbly phrased solo. The playing is also exceptionally eloquent in the great ''Vision'' passage, while the veiled tone when the clouds obscure the sun before the storm is atmospheric and at the same time keeps the textures clear.
The disc is filled out by the Four Last Songs in which the American soprano Sharon Sweet is the soloist. Sweet by name, but not by vocal nature, it would seem. Hers is a big voluptuous voice (as, of course, was Flagstad's, the first soloist in 1950) but it is not a specially beautiful sound. There is much scooping and swooping in this performance and a rather insensitive treatment of the texts. Moments like the end of ''September'' are well sung, but on the whole there is little that is memorable.'