Vienna. Music of the Strausses and Weber.

Vienna. Music of the Strausses and Weber. Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. JVC JMXR24025.

I love this stuff. I love waltzes, the Strausses, Fritz Reiner, and the XRCD remasterings from JVC. What I don't like is the cost. But with an ever-diminishing list of audiophile material available to the music lover, I suppose we should savor what little we have and be willing to pay the price.

Here are the upsides to the JVC: I like the music, of course, and the way Reiner plays it. Like most everything the man conducted, it comes out fresher, more pointed, more secure, and more clarified than ever before. Sure, Boskovsky put more bounce, more verve, into it, but Reiner adds the element of purity. I like the selections, three Strauss, Jr., waltzes: "Morning Papers," "Emperor Waltz," and "On the Beautiful Blue Danube"; his brother Josef Strauss's waltz, "Village Swallows"; a Weber waltz, "Invitation to the Dance"; and Richard Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes." And I like JVC's elegant packaging. Usually, I wouldn't care for the Digipak approach. I always worry that I'm going to damage a part of the center spindle and then be without a case altogether. But JVC's packaging is quite robust, and it simply looks better than any other such housing I've come across.

But most important I like JVC's impeccable 24-bit remasterings. Compared to RCA's own release of this material, the JVC is clearer and tighter, with greater dynamic impact. Using two separate CD players for instant comparisons (adjusting each disc for equal volume and trading them out to ensure I wasn't listening to the sound of the players rather than the sound of the discs), I found the RCA appearing very slightly soft and veiled than the JVC, with less punch. Interestingly, this results in the JVC's bass seeming less loud, but its impression is heightened by added force, which more than compensates.

Here are the downsides to the JVC: It doesn't contain as much material as the RCA "Living Stereo" release, which also includes not only the material from the original 1957 "Vienna" album but four additional Strauss waltzes from a later Reiner recording. And the JVC issue is almost twice the price of the RCA.

Clearly, the JVC XRCDs are not "sensible" buys. They are for those few pieces of music we cherish most and want to own and listen to in the absolute best possible form. Sometimes, that costs money.