This, then, is the one to go for if the recording's age is of no concern to you. It has the mark of true greatness that is sometimes hard to account for but is always instantly apparent.
I've kept the best item till last. EMI have just issued an absolutely stunning CD of Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life") from the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle, recorded two months before they played the same work throughout their last year's Asian tour. If you own the most expensive sound-system there is, this is the CD to show it off with. Rattle caresses every phrase, the playing is of an incomparably high level, and the work is anyway a great masterpiece. It's coupled with the same composer's altogether slighter Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite.
This is the most sumptuous, shat-tering, piercing, searing and beautiful recorded sound I've ever heard anywhere, probably even better than a live performance. I was in tears when it ended.
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