More of the Music of Tchaikovsky
- With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it throughout, this vintage RCA Red Seal reissue pressing is the BEST pressing of this recording we have ever heard
- Both of these sides are exceptionally detailed, with an abundance of space around all the players, the unmistakable sonic hallmark of the properly-mastered, properly-pressed vintage analog LP
- This copy is rich, 3D, full-bodied, and dynamic, with the clarinet especially musical
- We noted that the sound on this later label pressing could not be beat — it was so much more roomy, spacious and detailed, without the crudity of the Shaded Dogs that we mistakenly expected to win the shootout
- The performance is faster than our other favorite, the Ansermet, and fans of the work will have to determine for themselves which they prefer
This RCA reissue pressing of LSC 2328 has some of the BEST sound we have ever heard for The Nutcracker, and we’ve played them by the dozens, on the greatest Golden Age labels of all time, including, but not limited to, the likes of Mercury, RCA and London.
In a somewhat (but not too) surprising turn of events, the reissue pressing we are offering here beat all the originals and early reissues we could throw at it. Finally, this legendary Mohr/Layton production can be heard in its full glory!
If you like your Nutcracker exciting and dynamic, this is the copy for you.
Don’t buy into that record collecting / audiophile canard that the originals are better.
A Wealth of Recordings
For our most recent shootout we played Ansermet’s performance of the Suites on London, as well as pressings by Reiner and Fiedler, both of whom opted against using the Suites as Tchaikovsky wrote them, preferring instead to create a shorter version of the complete ballet with excerpts of their own choosing.
The CSO, as one might expect, plays this work with more precision and control than any other. They also bring more excitement and dynamic contrasts to their performance, adding greatly to our enjoyment of the music.
We like our recordings to have as many live music qualities as possible, and those qualities really come through on a record such as this when reproduced on the full-range speaker system we use.
What The Best Sides Of Excerpts from The Nutcracker 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 Excerpts from The Nutcracker
- 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.
Side One
Overture
Christmas Tree Scene
Marche
Divertissement
Spanish Dance
Arabian Dance
Chinese Dance
Trépak
Dance Of The Mirlitons
Mother Gigogne And The Clowns
Side Two
Waltz of the Flowers
Pas De Deux
Variation I – Tarantella
Variation II – Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy Coda
Further Reading