Conductor
Zubin Mehta
's 1971 recording of
Gustav Holst
's
The Planets
has always been a fine representative of the first part of his career. A generous, energetic recording in which he gave the brass of his
Los Angeles Philharmonic
, flexing its rapidly growing powers, free rein, and the percussion, too; hear the enthusiastic work of the timpanist in the "Uranus" movement. There may be a missed note or two, but the breadth and spaciousness of the performance marked it as one of the greats. The sound, too, was splendid for its time, and this 2024 audiophile LP reissue on the
Decca
label marks something of a tribute to the original engineers. They established the dimensions of the work immediately in the opening "Mars" movement and match
Mehta
's balances, both among the instruments and among the movements, step for step. It is a mark of
's reputation that listeners still remember this release more than 50 years on, but it has clearly happened; the album landed on classical best-seller charts in early 2024. That gave chart-watchers a chance to observe the rare spectacle of an LP reaching top chart levels, but this is a phenomenon that is on the increase in classical music as in other genres. ~ James Manheim