A friend of mine gave me a bunch of LPs on the condition that I transfer them to my music server and burn him some CDs. So it may come as a surprise to those of you who know my classical tastes, but the first few evenings of this undertaking have consisted of listening to a box of the entire Beatles catalog (Japanese pressings of the English albums). Got through Beatles for Sale last night, starting with Help tonight. What I find to be a lot of fun is reading the liner notes for the first two albums and wondering if in his wildest dreams the writer would have predicted what the Beatles would have become.
Not all of the albums I'm recording are of this quality, of course. For example, I also recorded the multicolored vinyl of the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra's Thus Spake Kazoosthra, truly a high water mark of the US recording industry. |
Montepilot: The one Classic reissue of the Heifetz recordings that is problematic is the Bruch Scottish Fantasy. I love the reading, but there is a constant low frequency rumble in the recording (either subways or the conductor bouncing on the podium) that is very distracting if you have a full range speaker system and don't have a rumble filter on your preamp (remember those?). It is not noticeable on the original pressing, which I have, because it rolls off the lows, but the wider frequency range of the new pressings actually seems to be a disadvantage in this case.
I think you should also get the Rozsa concerto, which has been such a standard for the piece that few violinists have dared to record it. He may miss a few notes here and there, but his fire makes up for it, and the recording is pretty good. Of course, as with all the Heifetz recordings, the violin is spotlit more than you would hear in concert, but then again, are you paying your money to hear Sir Malcolm Sargent or Heifetz? |
Tonight was old Decca recordings of shorter pieces night-
1. English String Music (including Britten's Simple Symphony)--Britten/English Chamber Orchestra. The King Super Analogue re-issue, pretty heavy in the bass but a very good recording.
2. Espana--Argento/London Symphony Orchestra
3. Rossini Overtures--Gamba/LSO
4. Hindemith-Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Weber (Addabo/LSO)--one of my favorite fun pieces, sadly under-recorded. |
I have recently acquired and listened the one-sided 45 RPM version of the Decca Mendelssohn in Scotland recording with Maag conducting reissued by Speakers Corner (thanks to Barry Konigsburg for showing me this disc). If this disc is any indication, I should be begging Speakers Corner to reissue more of their great Decca catalog in this format, much as I hate spending money on more versions of the same recording. It is a revelation in dynamics (micro as well as macro) and transparency compared with the good 33-1/3 rpm version. I generally dislike the 45 rpm pressings because of having to get up four times to hear a symphony, but some of the Speakers Corner Decca reissues (Rossini Overtures, Suite Espanola, and others featuring shorter, discrete pieces) would seem ideally suited for the format. |
Rush, thanks for the scoop, I did not know the story behind the Speakers Corner 45s. I can understand the limited market for this product; as I said, I'm tired of buying multiple formats of the same recording, but after hearing it this was just too good to ignore. I cannot understand the bad reviews this record got; I can only attribute them to people whose listening priorities are not close to mine. The 45 prm version gets rid of so much of the muddiness and congestion that I hear on the 33-1/3 rpm version (partially a function of my vinyl rig, perhaps) that it's almost like listening to a completely different recording. |
Rush, I believe we saved his soul!! |
Joe, if the Albeniz you're referring to is that wonderful Decca recording of the Suite Espanola, I would be interested in your impressions as well. The Super Analog disc version sounds a bit tilted towards the bass frequencies in my system (as do a lot of those reissues)compared to the Speakers Corner reissue, I'd be interested in how it (and the other versions) sound on your Walker. |
I find those Sheffield recordings to be remarkable in how they portray the timbre of the instruments as well as their dynamics. I'm not bothered by the lack of a hall sound; in a way, I think many of today's classical recordings are focusing too much on that aspect of the sound.
By the way, I just played the Albeniz ORG record yesterday and was stunned at how much better it sounds than either the King or Speakers Corner reissues, which I thought were pretty good in their own right. Very similar in improvements to the Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture/Scottish Symphony 45 rpm reissue over the standard Speakers Corner reissue. Now if only you didn't have to get up every ten minutes to change records in a listening session to get that kind of sound (and don't tell me to get the Tape Project tapes, Joe, that's a bit beyond my current means!). |
I think I'll bring out my old Bob Newhart Button Down Mind album and Bill Cosby albums after seeing these recent posts. |
Britten, Simple Symphony--English Music for Strings. Britten cond./English Chamber Orchestra; King Super Analog Disc (reissue of a 1968 London/Decca recording). As seems to be the case with most of the King reissues, the sound seems tilted towards the bass, which works well on this recording, particularly when the double basses strum in the second movement. I'm breaking in a new system (moved to a place with a much smaller room), and this record sounds great on the new setup.
Rush, I'm now in VA about 50 miles from you, will have to arrange a visit at some point soon. |
What else but the Vince Guaraldi Trio's "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Fantasy F-8431! Happy Holidays, Rush! |
Vaughan Williams, A Pastoral Symphony/In the Fen Country--Boult, New Philharmonia Orchestra-EMI ASD 2393
Exotic Dances from the Opera--Oue, Minnesota Orchestra--Reference Mastercuts RM-1505
Rodrigo, Concerto de Arajuez--Romero, Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields--Philips 9500 563
Arnold, English Scottish Cornish Dances--Arnold, London Philharmonic--Lyrita SCRS 109--HP was right, probably in the top three orchestral recordings I have on vinyl. |
I tend to agree somewhat with spiritofradio on the sonics of the von Karajan Beethoven cycle, while good they are geared more towards the performance rather than the sonics, as is the case with many of the DG recordings of the time. Don't mistake this cycIe for the one from the 70s, though, this one is much better sonically. I also have the Readers Digest box set of the symphonies, and from a sonics standpoint it is better (a classic Wilkinson/Culshaw production), but the surfaces are not as quiet as the DG set.
bkeske1, I have been considering taking up the Berlin on its digital concert hall (I have a number of their SACDs), just have to figure how to stream it outside of my computer speakers. Have you found the subscription worth it? |
I've been going through a Beethoven Symphony box I didn't realize I had, the 1963 von Karajan cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic. Last few nights I've listened to symphonies 1-5 and 7; tonight it's symphony 6 and perhaps 8. I can see why many feel that this cycle is among the top performances of the works. |
Shouldn't you and I be listening to Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" tonight? |
