STAR-POWERED REVIVALS : HERBERT GLASS

Ours is not an age blessed with classical superstars, artists who can sell out large auditoriums or move large quantities of recordings. And with the exorbitant fees demanded by those few stars (and starlets) we do have today, one can hardly wonder at the current intense interest among the recording companies in reviving on compact disc their star-powered, money-making recordings of the past.

The dreamy, subtly scored music of Frederick Delius has never sounded more fresh and appealing than in the two-disc CD set (Angel 47509) devoted to the classic performances, originally recorded between 1958 and 1963, by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic, the only artists who have ever been able to sell this music to the public.

Delians will of course be delighted at the reappearance of the likes of “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring,” “Summer Night on the River” and the “Irmelin” prelude, while anyone interested in the art of conducting would do well to make the acquaintance of the magical “Brigg Fair”--Beecham’s finest quarter-hour, and perhaps the composer’s as well.

RCA continues its series of Artur Rubinstein centennial tributes with a splendid pair of reissues. The first is a sumptuous coupling (5669) of the Schumann and Brahms piano quintets, with Rubinstein at his most commanding and the Guarneri Quartet in mid-1960s peak form (5669). The second (RCA 5756) is a most unexpected surprise, coming so soon after the complete set of Rubinstein-Leinsdorf Beethoven piano concertos on RCA CDs: Rubinstein playing Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto and Jascha Heifetz as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, both recorded live in Carnegie Hall in the 1940s with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. These are the stuff of legend, with Rubinstein ‘s playing an irresistible combination of dexterity, intensity and warmth, while Heifetz presents what may be his most sweetly expressive recorded interpretation.

In both, Toscanini--contrary to stereotype--provides leadership that is as accommodating as it is strong. Don’t expect 1980s sonics here, although the solo instruments come through clearly, but then you won’t be getting wimpy 1980s performances either.

Among the most celebrated collaborations of Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony were their French music “sonic spectaculars” recorded between 1955 and 1960, including the Saint-Saens Third Symphony and the Poulenc Organ Concerto, both with Berj Zamkochian at the Symphony Hall organ. Issued initially on separate LPs, they are now coupled on a single CD (RCA 5750) with, for good measure, Franck’s tasty “Chasseur maudit.”

These propulsive, finely detailed readings are, clearly, about much more than their purely sonic values, which nonetheless remain impressive after 30 years.

RCA and the Boston Symphony, under Munch easily the world’s greatest French orchestra, reached the pinnacle of their fame as sonic wonder workers in 1959 with their recording of the mighty Berlioz Requiem. That, too, returns on CD, revealing once again Munch’s uniquely dramatic--some would say overheated--approach to the music of his favorite composer and the ethereal tenor voice of Leopold Simoneau. No amount of technical wizardry can, however, bring substance and color to the bland, insubstantial male voices of the New Conservatory Chorus, no less critical a shortcoming of this otherwise unequalled performance today as it was in 1959.

The two-CD set (RCA 6210) comes with an extraordinary, 50-minute-long bonus: the dashing Munch-BSO rendition of Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” recorded in 1954, at the very dawn of stereophony, and still impressive in both sound and execution.

Also on RCA, two additions to the Fritz Reiner-Chicago Symphony CD discography--music of Richard Strauss recorded in the mid-l950s which helped define the term high fidelity : “Also sprach Zarathustra” (RCA 5721) and “Don Quixote” (RCA 5734). Antonio Janigro is the sensitive cello soloist in the latter, which is combined with fiercely brilliant playing by pianist Byron Janis and the Chicago ensemble under Reiner of Strauss’ youthful “Burleske.”

“Zarathustra” is packaged with a strait-laced reading of the “Bourgeois Gentilhomme” suite (inexplicably lacking two of its movements) and the “Rosenkavalier” Waltzes. More Strauss in the form of his two marvelous Horn Concertos, which serve to introduce to the CD generation the incomparable tone, technique and artistry of Dennis Brain (Angel 47834). Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in both, while Paul Hindemith leads his own, eminently forgettable (it was forgotten with Brain’s untimely death in 1957) Horn Concerto with the same orchestra.

Among the numerous CD reissues by CBS of Leonard Bernstein’s greatest New York Philharmonic hits of the 1950s and ‘60s, three deserve particular mention: his gorgeous, loving reading of Ives’ Second Symphony, with the same composer’s Third Symphony and “The Unanswered Question” (42407); the equally memorable Copland program comprising “Appalachian Spring,” “Billy the Kid” and “Rodeo” (42265), and the 1959 recording of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, distinguished by Bernstein’s full-throttle pacing of the finale, which, contrary to the composer’s allegro moderato marking, replaces the suggestion of jackbooted high-stepping in Red Square with what sounds very much like a parody of same. To one listener, at least, the Bernstein interpretation makes the work more than usually palatable.