STRAUSS: “Also Sprach Zarathustra”; “Vier Letzte Lieder.”

New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta; Eva Marton, soprano; Toronto Symphony conducted by Andrew Davis. CBS Masterworks MDK-44910 (compact disc). It looks like a bargain, but this midprice reissue offers value only in the extended Nietzsche-inspired tone poem. Mehta conducts a persuasively idiomatic performance, wasting little time over the bombastic introduction, preferring to indulge the more seductive rhetoric of the “Night Waltz,” aided by Glenn Dicterow’s suave violin. The 1980 sonics are a bit crude by today’s standards. Marton unfortunately brings little but a generalized vehemence to the Four Last Songs, battling a cantilena that must soar above all worldly (and vocal) considerations. Davis provides lumpy accompaniment.