Oskar Fried was the first conductor ever to record Strauss’s Alpensinphonie (1925), Mahler’s Second Symphony (1923), Beethoven’s Third Symphony and Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony (1924), all of which are included in this set.

Fried’s recordings reveal individuality of interpretation, manifested by flexibility of phrasing.

He was the first foreign conductor to perform in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Otto Klemperer paid tribute to Fried, saying: “He was a brilliant conductor, an extremely gifted composer and a most original personality.”

Although Oskar Fried was a major figure amongst European conductors before the Second World War, considered the equal of Toscanini and Furtwängler, he remains relatively little known, perhaps because he died just before the development of modern recording.

His early acoustic recordings are each artistically superb. He had a rare gift for bringing the best out of that difficult medium.