This item appears to be a transcription of a two-LP record album. However, I was interested only in the Lanner selections rather than Nedbal's operetta "Polenblut."

The three Lanner selections -- "Kosenden," "Hofballtänze," and the overture "Alt Wien" -- are located on Record 2, Side B; and it looks as if they were included here to fill out the fourth side of the album because the Nedbal piece didn't use up all the available space.

"Kosenden" and "Hofballtänze" are waltzes; the overture, though, you may not find in many standard listings of Lanner's works. That's because "Alt Wien" (Old Vienna) is actually an operetta that was adapted for the stage in 1911 by Emil Stern using the late Lanner's music. Lanner himself didn't write any operettas; the genre didn't even exist in his time. In other words, "Alt Wien" is what musicians call a pasticcio work. (These days it would be popularly called a "jukebox musical" -- a Broadway show made up already existing hit songs; think of the musical "Mama Mia!" composed of ABBA tunes.) So the overture "Alt Wien" found here is Lanner's music in Emil Stern's arrangement.

These selections are fine, and the recording while not great is acceptable. (Someone else will have to address Nedbal's "Polenblut.") My only caveat is that the audio file for these three pieces runs for a total 40 minutes, and half of that is dead air. The three Lanner pieces take up only the first twenty minutes of the audio file. So you'll likely want to use some applications like Apple's QT Pro to chop of that pointless twenty minutes of dead air after the music.

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