The flood of fascinating CD reissues of mar velous old 78 RPM discs continues without interruption. The enterprising Pearl label in England has just released some, though un fortunately not all, of the electrical record ings made by the great Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg with the New York Phil harmonic (then called the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York) between 1925 and 1930.[1]

There is little doubt that Mengelberg was one of the great conductors of the century. Born in 1871 in Utrecht to German parents, he studied in Germany at the Cologne Con servatory, and in 1891 became conductor of the municipal orchestra in Lucerne. In 1895, he became conductor of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, a postion he held until 1945. Men gelberg was also the leading conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1923 to 1929, when he was replaced by Toscanini, though he continued to conduct the orchestra into the 1929-30 season. Throughout Mengelberg’s career, he was a champion of the works of Gustav Mahler; in 1920, he cele brated his twenty-fifth anniversary at the Concertgebouw with a complete Mahler cycle. He was also devoted to the works of Richard Strauss. Ein Heldenleben was dedi cated to Mengelberg; he gave its first per formance, and remained its most persuasive performer.

Mengelberg spent the last years of his life under the cloud of a deserved reputation for pro-German sympathies (and for conducting in Germany) during the World War II occu pation of Holland. Earlier,