More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

• A vintage copy (VICS 1107) of two superb performances by Monteux and the London Symphony Orchestra boasting INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last
• These sides are richer, fuller and livelier than all others we played, as well as more open and transparent, with notably improved clarity, less smear, and better bass
• This is a spectacular recording – it’s guaranteed to put to shame any Heavy Vinyl pressing of orchestral music you own
•  When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from 1965, but that’s precisely what it is.
• Even more extraordinary, the right copies are the ones that win shootouts
• There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this recording certainly deserve a place on that list.

This vintage pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What the Best Sides of Enigma Variations / Variations On A Theme By Haydn Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1960
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record! We know, we’ve heard them all.

Top end extension is critical to the sound of the best copies. Lots of old records (and new ones) have no real top end; consequently, the studio or stage will be missing much of its natural air and space, and instruments will lack their full complement of harmonic information.

Tube smear is common to most vintage pressings. The copies that tend to do the best in a shootout will have the least (or none), yet are full-bodied, tubey and rich.

What We’re Listening For On Enigma Variations / Variations On A Theme By Haydn

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Powerful bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Production and Engineering

James Walker was the producer and Kenneth Wilkinson the engineer for these sessions in glorious Kingsway Hall. It’s yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording.

The gorgeous hall the London Symphony recorded in was one of the best venues of its day. Scores of amazing sounding recordings were made there by Decca using an All Tube Recording Chain being fed by the Decca “Tree” miking setup.

There is a solidity and richness to the sound that goes beyond practically any other recordings we know of, yet clarity and transparency are not sacrificed in the least.

Side One

Elgar: Enigma Variations, Op. 36 ( Part I)

Side Two

Elgar: Enigma Variations, Op. 36 (Concluded) 
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Op. 56 A

Enigma Variations, for orchestra, Op. 36

At the end of an overlong day laden with teaching and other duties, Edward Elgar lit a cigar, sat at his piano and began idling over the keys. To amuse his wife, the composer began to improvise a tune and played it several times, turning each reprise into a caricature of the way one of their friends might have played it or of their personal characteristics. “I believe that you are doing something which has never been done before,” exclaimed Mrs. Elgar. Thus was born one of music’s great works of original conception, and Elgar’s greatest large-scale “hit”: the Enigma Variations. The enigma is twofold: each of the 14 variations refers to a friend of Elgar’s, who is depicted by the nature of the music, or by sonic imitation of laughs, vocal inflections, or quirks, or by more abstract allusions. The other enigma is the presence of a larger “unheard” theme which is never stated but which according to the composer is very well known. The identity of the phantom tune left the world with the composer, and guesses have ranged from “God Save the King” to a simple major scale.

This apparatus aside, the variations contain some of the most charming and deeply felt music Elgar ever penned, more than redeeming the work from the status of mere gimmickry. The main theme is hesitating, lean and haunting, and is reprised with the passionate first variation that represents Caroline, the composer’s wife, a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. The remaining variations are as follows:

• II. H.D.S.-P. — Hew Stuart-Powell, a pianist with whom Elgar played chamber music.
• III. R.B.T. — Richard Townsend, whose vocal pitch would rise when excited.
• IV. W.M.B. — William Baker, who after barking out plans for the day would leave the room with a vigorous door-slam.
• V. R.P.A. — Richard Arnold, son of the writer Matthew Arnold, who would punctuate serious discourse with a nervous laugh.
• VI. Isobel Fitton, a violist.
• VII. Troyte — Arthur Griffith, an architect and raucous pianist.
• VIII. W.N. — Winifred Norbury, a gracious and gentle friend.
• IX. Nimrod — Augustus Jaeger, Elgar’s close friend. The most beautiful and famous of the variations, this music describes a nighttime walk when Jaeger gave verbal encouragement to composer, recalling Beethoven’s determination in adversity. “Jaeger” means “hunter in German, and Nimrod was a biblical hunter.
• X. Dorabella — Dora Penny, whose infectious laugh is depicted in the woodwinds.
• XI. G.R.S. — George Sinclair, an organist depicted frolicking with his bulldog, Dan.
• XII. B.G.N. — Basil Nevinson, a cellist.
• XIII. *** — The identity of this person is not known, but she is thought to have been on an ocean voyage at the time — this divined from a quote from Mendelssohn’s “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.”
• XIV. E.D.U. — Elgar himself. “Edu” was Caroline’s nickname for her husband. This heartily extroverted, even boisterous, finale ties together the first variation and the Nimrod themes, as though to suggest that the composer has taken advice to heart and is determined to succeed. The entry of an organ in the final measures brings the work to a confident, happy close.

-Description by Wayne Reisig, All Music