Classical Music Only | What You're Listening to Now, Or Very Recently | Any Mediums :
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Stringreen
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I always prefer stereo. Mono sounds like a blanket is on my ears.
Thanks Allen! I love listening anew to all these old LP's that haven't seen a stylus in many years.
Sorry for my random selections. I've yet to figure out how to catalog these records other than cleaned vs. uncleaned so I just pick a cleaned record and play it.
Not all of them sound good but the ones I've posted here (and they are likely pressing dependent) are pretty good to excellent....at least to my ears.
Julot
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Maher 2 "Resurrection" live at the Concertgebouw, Maris Janssons
I stumbled upon the video of this concert on TV and was pleasantly suprised of what Janssons did with it. I hadn't thought much of him as a conductor before: nothing bad, solid, honest, would probably enjoy him live a great deal, but in Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, I was mildly bored. But what I saw was that he seems at home in Mahler, it looks like a music that talks directly to his heart. There is both splendid sound in the moment and a sense of narration, of consistency, that makes it the audio equivalent of a page-turner.
Plus, the orchestra is also (that's less of a surprise) remarkably at home with Mahler, and has that extraordinary quality of soloists, like a huge chamber music orchestra. And of course a Mahler symphony, especially those early ones with their huge dynamics and physical effects, are of particular interest to an audiophile, and the Concertgebouw hall has perfect acoustics for this music. And it comes in hi-rez.
Attachments
This is one of two albums featuring the Brahms String Sextets. The originals were on the EMI ASD series in both stereo and mono. Many of the mono Angels were British pressings, usually much, much better than the American Angel pressings.
What makes these albums special for me and my wife is that we knew Ernst Wallfisch, one of the two violists on the albums. His wife Lory was my wife's piano teacher at Smith College in the '60's where he also taught. Yehudi Menuhin was responsible for getting them out of Rumania after WWII as the Communist government was taking over. They were also very much influenced by Casals and played several times in his Prades Festival. They started teaching at Smith in 1964, and my wife was fortunate to start at Smith in 1965. Unfortunately, Ernst died suddenly of a heart attack in 1979 at the age of 59. We continued to see his wife until she died just a few years ago.
Larry
What makes these albums special for me and my wife is that we knew Ernst Wallfisch, one of the two violists on the albums. His wife Lory was my wife's piano teacher at Smith College in the '60's where he also taught. Yehudi Menuhin was responsible for getting them out of Rumania after WWII as the Communist government was taking over. They were also very much influenced by Casals and played several times in his Prades Festival. They started teaching at Smith in 1964, and my wife was fortunate to start at Smith in 1965. Unfortunately, Ernst died suddenly of a heart attack in 1979 at the age of 59. We continued to see his wife until she died just a few years ago.
Larry
Nice back story Larry! Thanks for sharing.
Stringreen
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Petrouchka/Firebird Suite...Pierre Monteaux Performance and sound was very good. The Firebird especially has a HUGE dynamic range....(couldn't even hear the doorbell ring when UPS made his delivery). I don't know if my amp ran out of steam (Ayre 200/200), the room is lousy, or the recording is overloaded, but the sound got "fuzzy" but then cleared on the softer parts. This is an RCA red seal...LSC 2113
Thanks. The Nojima Liszt album is very special. It was done during the time Keith Johnson was using his special focused gap tape recorder for recording. The Liszt Sonata is a real knuckle buster as well as the other showpieces on the album. Even though the CD says "Digital Master", the vinyl was recorded in analogue. IIRC Keith did some albums in both analogue and digital in parallel. The vinyl is terrific, getting raves in the Absolute Sound when first released. For even better sound, Tape Project choose this as one of their 15ips 2 track releases. Paul Stubblebine of TP has a very close relationship with Keith and Reference Records (Paul currently has been doing all the vinyl remastering of their current releases.) He used Keith's tape recorder to play the Liszt album (and the other Reference Recordings on TP) to make the running master for the TP releases.
Larry
Larry
socfan12
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Larry, you're a walking encyclopedia of recorded music!:scholar: Thanks again for sharing your insights.
Yes, have heard that RR did recordings in both analog and digital. I think they are all digital masters now though. Having said that, the recent LPs still get good reviews from pros and consumers alike.
Yes, have heard that RR did recordings in both analog and digital. I think they are all digital masters now though. Having said that, the recent LPs still get good reviews from pros and consumers alike.
socfan12
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The Firebird is one of my favorite pieces and I use the RR recording to demo gear.
This is a very early stereo recording, recorded by Decca for RCA in Paris in October and November, 1956, well before stereo records were being issued. The stereo version that is referred to in the post above is the Classic records issue from the late '90's IIRC, done with the master tapes. There were two parallel recordings made, one in mono, with the great Kenneth Wilkinson engineering, and Roy Wallace, one of the most creative Decca engineers doing the stereo. The producer was John Culshaw. RCA never released a stereo version of the album in the US, but released one in England RCA SB2037 in 1959, two years after the mono version was released in October (US) and November (Britain) 1957. When the rights to the album reverted back to Decca, they released the album on their bargain SPA label in 1971, and on their London STS series in 1973.
Monteux was, IMHO, very underrated. Early in his career he worked for famous Ballets Russe in Paris and conducted the premiers of Rite of Spring and Petrouchka, as well as many others. He later became conductor of the Boston Symphony and San Francisco Symphony as well as other positions. In 1961, as the age of 86 he was hired by the London Symphony to rebuild them to their former preeminent position in London. He did so within a period of three years. For his contract he insisted on a 25 year contract with an additional 25 year extension. He only made it 3 years, when he died at age 89.
Larry
Allen, thanks. You are correct about RefRec switching to all digital recording. All the recent LP's that Paul Stubblebine has been mastering for RefRec are done from the digital masters. I think they sound great. Paul usually does a little remastering magic when transferring from digital to analogue. An interesting side note. Back in 2010 when I started my ripping project, my consultant Tim Marutani arranged a big shootout at my home, spending a long day listening to various combinations of hardware and software. Tim had Paul Stubblebine run the shootout. I picked out a couple of my favorite records to rip, and Paul cut a lacquer of the RefRec Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances from the digital master (which now several years later is one of the vinyl releases on RefRec) to also use in the test.
Larry
socfan12
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Larry, just read this. Wow, how cool is that? So you effectively heard the first 'pressing' of Symphonic Dances? And you ripped it? Did Paul try comparing your rip to his digital master? Do you still have that lacquer?
Very cool story, Larry!
Very cool story, Larry!
