In the 1950s, Leopold Stokowski made a series of splendid LPs with a specially-selected orchestra of top-flight musicians. One of these was entitled ''Landmarks of a Distinguished Career.'' It featuring pieces he had earlier recorded on best-selling 78s and included The Blue Danube Waltz. His previous recordings of this piece were abridged to fit the older discs side-lengths but for his 1957 stereo remake all the repeats were observed. However, only now is it making its official debut on CD. Stokowski wrote: ''Although Johann Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz is light music, it is first class of its kind, a perfect picture of the gaiety of Vienna in his day, and a thing of joy forever.'' In his notes to this CD, Robert Matthew-Walker writes: ''Stokowski's performance of the complete score raises it to the level of a short tone-poem, removed from the ballroom into the concert hall.'' It raises the curtain on a selection of beautifully played string pieces, recorded during the same period, and includes Borodin's Nocturne as arranged by Stokowski's fellow-conductor, Sir Malcolm Sargent.

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