Musical Excellence in the Bargain Basement : CD reissues provide great value at any price

When the compact disc was introduced, about seven years ago, the industry told us that the medium was suited mainly to classical music or other relative esoterica. The companies reasoned that as long as CD players cost about $1,000 and recordings cost $25, the youthful, pop-oriented masses were unlikely to be interested.

Things, obviously, have changed.

Today, CD players can go for as little as $100 and a classical CD of newly recorded material typically retails for around $15 (considerably more in Europe and the Far East).

“Mid-priced” CDs now retail for, say, $10, while a “budget” CD can be had for the price of a fast-food lunch (with large fries), about $6.

In the area of classical releases, we’re talking not merely value for the money, but value at any price.

The items from each of the five major labels chosen for inclusion here are all special and desirable. All are stereo reissues (new material involves royalties and promotional expenses that make the price shoot up).

RCA’s latest budget series, Silver Seal, purveys bedrock standards, aiming for the ear and wallet of a neophyte audience.

Among its treasures is a burly, thunderously exciting Beethoven Ninth Symphony recorded live (with coughs and a roof-raising final ovation to prove it) in 1983 in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Zubin Mehta leads the New York Philharmonic and New York Choral Artists and a starry solo quartet: Margaret Price, Marilyn Horne, Jon Vickers and Matti Salminen (60477).

Drama and elegance characterize the 1969 studio recording of Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” (60478) in which Georges Pretre leads a Boston Symphony whose playing, particularly that of the strings, is orchestral virtuosity epitomized. The “fill-ups” on the CD are cheerfully hectic readings of Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” and “Corsair” overtures with Charles Munch leading a younger, even more French-sounding Boston Symphony.

In a third RCA release (60489), old-time Sibelius--the composer as mainstream late-Romantic in contrast to today’s view of the Fabulous Finn as closet modernist--is presented in a bountiful program comprising the Second Symphony, “Pohjola’s Daughter,” “The Swan of Tuonela” and “Valse triste.” Eugene Ormandy leads the creamily resplendent Philadelphia Orchestra.

Deutsche Grammophon’s “Musikfest” series offers top quality for bottom dollar. For instance, a hair-raising Bruckner Fourth Symphony, the “Romantic,” is executed with stunning polish and muscularity by the Berlin Philharmonic under Eugen Jochum’s masterful direction (427200).

The Dvorak Cello Concerto with Pierre Fournier and the Berlin Philharmonic under George Szell has been the indispensable modern edition since its appearance in 1962. Its virtues have been reconfirmed in various reissue formats, the latest, on Musikfest (429155), adding as bonus Fournier’s readings of Bloch’s “Schelomo” and Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei.” Buy a few.

Among the erstwhile collectors’ items revived in London’s supercheap Weekend Classics series: the hugely stylish, Spanish-theme program by Ernest Ansermet and his Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, including a complete “El Amor Brujo” of Falla, Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espagnole” and “Bolero” and Chabrier’s “Espana” (417 691); both Brahms Serenades for orchestra, led with unmatched elan by Istvan Kertesz and impeccably executed by the London Symphony in its 1960s glory days (421 628).

The third Polygram label, Philips, chips in with a four-CD set (428 848) of the six Tchaikovsky symphonies, led with blazing theatricality by Igor Markevitch and again formidably executed by the London Symphony.

If a swift, bright-toned “Eroica” is to your taste, try Jochum and Amsterdam’s great Concertgebouw Orchestra in a reading of chamber-music clarity and incisiveness, part of a superb Beethoven program that also includes the “Fidelio” and third “Leonore” overtures (426 066).

CBS/Sony’s bargain line, Odyssey, offers handsome remasterings of two celebrated Mahler symphony performances led by Bruno Walter: the First, with the Columbia Symphony, the Second (“Resurrection”) with the New York Philharmonic (45674, two discs).

And not to forget Odyssey’s Debussy package--”La Mer,” “Jeux,” the Nocturnes, “Images,” “Printemps” and several shorter works--in which Pierre Boulez leads the Cleveland and New Philharmonia orchestras: reissues of the 1970s performances that established the modern standard of Debussy interpretation and execution (45620, two discs). As enthralling a 2 1/2 hours of music as you ever paid virtually nothing for.