A lot of pleasure yesterday evening from my new (EMI Great Recordings of the Century) 2-CD set of Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia in Wagner bits and pieces (1960-61). Wagner fitted my mood very well, and the Tannhäuser Overture makes good listening. The sound is fine, and well balanced. Interesting to note how the stock of Klemperer (and Furtwängler, Weingartner and Mengelberg) keeps rising -- and that of Toscanini, for example, drifts downwards. Partly to do with the awful sound Toscanini used to like. But partly due, one feels, to his brutal way with so much music. Whatever: the two Klemperer CDs will give me as much pleasure as does the similar 2-CD set of Furtwängler conducting Wagner bits.