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45 Essential Outstanding Tracks that Became Huge on Hed Kandi's Global Dancefloor Since the Label Began in 1999. Re-create the Perfect Hed Kandi Night (At a World Class Stylish Party) with a Scintillating Party-in-a-box for the Party Season…

To be sure, there are some great performances in this 10-disc set, André Previn: The Great Recordings. Previn's insouciant wit is evident in his effervescent reading of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and there is deep affection in his sensuous account of highlights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. His explosive rendering of Orff's Carmina Burana has barbaric splendor, and there is thrilling excitement in his orgasmic interpretation of Rachmaninov's Second Symphony. But it can't be denied that Previn's superficial readings of Holst's The Planets and Debussy's Images are little more than musical travelogs, and that his dreary accounts of Shostakovich's Eighth and Elgar's Enigma Variations are musty musical picture galleries. His extravagantly colorful renderings of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast come across as lurid musical history lessons.

André Previn's 1975 EMI recording of Carmina Burana sounds better than ever in this new transfer. The analog tape hiss has been tamed, yet there's more "air" between the notes and a greater sense of dynamic and timbral definition. Engineering-wise, the mid-70s were golden years for EMI, and the rhythmic verve, dramatic momentum, and unbuttoned joy that Previn and his brilliant forces project still pack a sonic wallop. The soloists especially are outstanding. Thomas Allen navigates Orff's cruelly high tessitura with no effort, and Sheila Armstrong wraps her warm, flexible pipes around "In trutina mentis dubia" to moving effect.