Various orchestras/ Wilhelm Furtwängler EMI Classics 907 8782 (21 CDs)****

What's not to like? Here's a compendious collection of the work of one of the conducting giants of the 20th century, Wilhelm Furtwängler. It includes the complete symphonies of Brahms and Beethoven (including the Ninth, recorded at the postwar reopening of the Bayreuth Festival), Beethoven's Fidelio, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde(both complete, but without librettos), four major violin concertos with Yehudi Menuhin, one of the finest ever accounts of Mozart's G minor symphony, and much more besides, plus a documentary by Jon Tolansky. Furtwängler's conducting had a passion and intensity that were mostly exhilarating. But he could veer from the cosmic to the apparently mundane, and his fluctuations of tempo alone have always been a barrier to some listeners. In other words, there's not much here that will leave anyone feeling indifferent. See url.ie/57cs