Bruno Walter - Mozart: The Last Six Symphonies (Remastered) (2019) [Hi-Res]

Bruno Walter's splendid stereo recordings of the last six Mozart symphonies, made in Legion Hall, Hollywood in 1959 with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, are already available in a box set, and have been praised by me in these pages. Now we are given an alternative choice. The new issue has those same recordings of Symphonies Nos. 35 and 38-41, sounding very good indeed, and offering the •wisdom and humanity, breadth and vitality we expect from Bruno Walter in this composer. But No. 36 in C (Linz) is offered in an earlier 1955 mono version, recorded in New York at the same time as the famous rehearsals for that performance, previously known under the appropriate sobriquet "The birth of a performance" (issued with the Linz on a two-LP set, 11/71-nla). Here we discover for ourselves how Walter could slowly and methodically refine phrasing and tailor and sharpen rhythms, producing a genuine Viennese sound from a group of first-class American musicians, The mono recording of the Linz Symphony is of good quality: no apologies need to be made for it. The sound is more studioish than the rest of the series, but well balanced and does not lack resonance. -- Gramophone