_Composers – Bizet

Ibert / Saint-Saens / Bizet – Divertissement / Danse Macabre & more / Martinon

More of the Music of Saint-Saens

  • With two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy of these wonderful orchestral works that sounds remotely as good as this vintage London Blueback pressing
  • These sides are clear, full-bodied and present, with plenty of space around the players, the unmistakable sonic hallmark of the properly mastered, properly pressed vintage analog LP
  • The presentation of the orchestra is wide, tall, spacious, rich and tubey, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate

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Finding the Demo Disc in Your Collection: A New Champion is Crowned!

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Finding the DEMO DISC in Your Collection: A New Champion is CROWNED!

We Love the Record Too

Here is how we described a recent shootout winning copy:

The mastering EQ is close to perfection, with correct tonality from top to bottom. It’s surprisingly rich and smooth. Transparency and top-end extension were excellent as well. The timpani has the weight and whomp of the real thing, and they’re way at the back where they should be.

This is a superb Demonstration disc, but it is also an excellent Test disc. The sound of the best copies is rich, full-bodied, incredibly spacious, and exceptionally extended up top. There is a prodigious amount of musical information spread across the soundstage, much of it difficult to reproduce.

Musicians are banging on so many different percussive devices (often at the far back of the stage, or, even better, far back and left or right) that getting each one’s sonic character to clearly come through is a challenge — and when you’ve met it, a thrill. If you’ve done your homework, this is the kind of record that can show you what you’ve accomplished.

On the best copies the strings have wonderful texture and sheen. If your system isn’t up to it (or you have a copy with a problem in this area), the strings might sound a little shrill and possibly grainy as well, but I’m here to tell you that the sound on the best copies is just fine with respect to string tone and timbre. You will need to look elsewhere for the problem.

Tops for Table Tweaking

The recording has tremendous transients and dynamics as well; be prepared to have trouble tracking it. In that respect it’s a prime candidate for table, cartridge and system tweaking. (I once adjusted my anti-skate while playing this very album, at the time dialing it in to a “T”.

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An Extraordinary Recording of the Carmen Fantasie – This Is Why You Must Do Shootouts

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

UPDATE 2025

It has been years since a Whiteback pressing on the later label won a shootout. Some reissue copies of CS 6165 have earned Nearly White Hot Stamper grades, but we would be very surprised if one of the Blueback originals we play in the next shootout does not come out on top. They are just too good.

This London Whiteback LP has DEMO DISC sound like you will not believe, especially on side two, which earned our coveted A Triple Plus rating. The sound is warm, sweet and transparent; in short, absolutely GORGEOUS. We call it AGAIG — As Good As It Gets!

As this is one of the Greatest Violin Showpiece Albums of All Time, it is certainly a record that belongs in every right-thinking audiophle’s collection. (If you’re on our site and taking the time to read this, that probably means you.) Ruggiero Ricci is superb throughout.

And side one was just a step below the second side in terms of sound quality, with very solid A++ sound. To find two sides of this caliber, on quiet vinyl no less, is no mean feat. You could easily go through ten copies without finding one as consistently good sounding as this one.

A True Demo Disc, Or Was It?

Ricci’s playing of the Bizet-Sarasate Carmen Fantasie is OUT OF THIS WORLD. There is no greater perforrmance on record in my opinion, and few works that have as much Audiophile Appeal.

Which is why I’ve had a copy of this record in my own collection for about fifteen years marked “My Demo Disc.” But this copy KILLED it. How could that be?

It just goes to show: No matter how good a particular copy of a record may sound to you, when you clean and play enough of them you will almost always find one that’s better, and often surprisingly better.

Shootouts are the only way to find these kinds of records. That’s why you must do them.

Nothing else works. If you’re not doing shootouts (or buying the winners of shootouts from us) you simply don’t have top quality copies in your collection, except in the rare instances where you just got lucky. In the world of records luck can only take you so far. The rest of the journey requires effort.

The Average Copy

When you play a copy of this record and hear a smeared, veiled violin, don’t be too surprised.

When the orchestra comes in and is full of the worst kind of compressor distortion, likewise, this is not the least bit unusual. In fact, it’s pretty much par for the course.

The soundstage may be huge: spacious and 3-D. It is on most copies.  But what good is a record of violin showpieces if the violin doesn’t sound right?

Sides One and Two

Side two here shows you how good the violin — and the whole orchestra — can sound. It’s tonally correct from top to bottom, transparent and sweet. The texture on the strings is PERFECTION. Ricci is a little more distant than he is on side one; these pieces are less about the “violin-in-your-lap” effect and more about the violin as an integrated member of the orchestra.

Of all the copies we played, this side had the most of a quality that goes a long way in the world of classical music.

As we sent through the various copies, we noticed that the sound on this side was especially relaxed.

Compare that to the typical Classic Records Heavy Vinyl pressing, which, on the relaxation scale of one to ten, rates a lot closer to one than it does to ten. Between one and two probably. Shrill strings set my teeth on edge, and Classic Records produced boatloads of records with screechy string tone right from the start.

Side one was not quite as rich and weighty as side two, so we marked it down to A++. Although it may not be the best side one we have ever played, it still ranks as an incredible DEMO DISC for the first piece, the reworking of Carmen by Sarasate as a showpiece for violin, which has violin fireworks the likes of which you may have never heard.

Ricci is The King on these romantic works. His playing will leave you in awe of the man.

Recorded music just doesn’t get much better than this.

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Bizet / L’arlesienne And Carmen Suites – Ansermet

More of the Music of Georges Bizet

  • An early London pressing that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • This is a spectacular recording — it’s guaranteed to put to shame any Heavy Vinyl pressing of orchestral music you own
  • Vibrant orchestrations, top quality sound and scratch-free surfaces combine for an astounding listening experience
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case
  • If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good ’50s All Tube Analog can be, this killer copy should be just the record to do it
  • Recorded in 1958 using the amazing Decca Tree mic setup, it’s yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording
  • 1958 just happens to be one of the truly great years for analog recordings, as evidenced by this amazing group of albums, all recorded or released in that year
  • This is a Must Own album, along with these other entries in our core classical/orchestral collection

Production and Engineering

James Walker was the producer, Roy Wallace the engineer for these sessions from 1958 in Geneva’s glorious Victoria Hall. It’s yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording.

The gorgeous hall the Suisse Romande recorded in was possibly the best recording venue of its day, possibly of all time; more amazing sounding recordings were made there than any other hall we know of. There is a richness to the sound that exceeds all others, yet clarity and transparency are not sacrificed in the least. It’s as wide, deep and three-dimensional as any, which is of course all to the good, but what makes the sound of these recordings so special is the weight and power of the brass and the timbral accuracy of the instruments in every section.

This is the kind of record that will make you want to take all your heavy vinyl classical pressings and put them up for sale. None of them, I repeat not a single one of them, can ever begin to sound the way this record sounds.

Quality record production is a lost art, and it’s been lost for a very long time.

Famous in its Day

The Carmen Ballet Suite was deservedly famous in audiophile circles back in the ’70s. Even with the dubious equipment that a high-end stereo store might be running, this record would still sound shockingly good. It has so much “life” to it, so many interesting colors, and above all such three-dimensional spaciousness, it can make even bad transistor equipment, which is pretty much all there was back then, sound good.

The store I frequented carried the classic tube Audio Research electronics — that’s where I bought mine — but most stores were all-transistor, and high-power transistors at that, not a sound I care to revisit. Would love to hear my SP3-A-1 again though!

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This Carmen Ballet Is a Great Test Disc for Shrill, Gritty Strings

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Georges Bizet Available Now

UPDATE 2025:

I’ve added some tubes-versus-transistors commentary at the bottom of this posting.

This Angel Melodiya pressing of Bizet’s Carmen, rearranged by Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin for strings and 47 percussion instruments, has two incredible sides. Demo Quality Sound barely begins to do it justice. If you have the system to play it, this copy is a KNOCKOUT.

But boy is it a difficult record to reproduce. You better have everything working right when you play this one — it’s guaranteed to bring practically any audiophile system to its knees.

Speed, resolving power and freedom from distortion are what this record needs to sound its best.

Is your system up to it? There’s only one way to find out.

And if you have any peaky audiophile wire in your system, the kind that is full of detail but calls attention to itself, you are in big trouble with a record like this.

More than anything, this is a record that rewards your system’s neutrality.

Testing

This is a superb Demonstration Disc, but it is also an excellent Test Disc. The sound of the best copies is rich, full-bodied, incredibly spacious, and exceptionally extended up top. There is a prodigious amount of musical information spread across the soundstage, much of it difficult to reproduce.

Musicians are banging on so many different percussion instruments (often at the far back of the stage, or, even better, far back and left or right) that getting each one’s sonic character to clearly come through is a challenge — and when you’ve met it, a thrill. If you’ve done your homework, this is the kind of record that can show you what you’ve accomplished.

On the best copies the strings have wonderful texture and sheen. If your system isn’t up to it (or you have a copy with a problem in this area), the strings might sound a little shrill and possibly gritty as well, but I’m here to tell you that the sound on the best copies is just fine with respect to string tone and timbre. You will need to look elsewhere for the problem.

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Bizet / Saint-Saens / Carmen Fantaisie / Introduction And Rondo Capriccioso / Ricci

More of the Music of Georges Bizet

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this early London LP
  • This is a spectacular recording, and one of the Greatest Violin Showpiece Albums of All Time
  • It is certainly a record that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection. If you’re on our site and taking the time to read this, that probably means you
  • Ruggiero Ricci is superb throughout – we know of no better performance of these works than those found on this very record
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case

Ricci’s playing of the Bizet-Sarasate Carmen Fantasie is out of this world. There is no greater performance on record, in my opinion, and few works that have as much audiophile appeal.

The Average Copy

When you play a copy of this record and hear a smeared, veiled violin, don’t be too surprised. This is not the least bit unusual, in fact it’s pretty much par for the course. The soundstage may be huge, spacious and 3-D. It is on most copies.

But what good is a record of violin showpieces if the violin doesn’t sound right?

Sides One and Two

These two sides can show you how good the violin — and the whole orchestra — can sound. They’re tonally correct from top to bottom, transparent and sweet.

These pieces are less about the “violin-in-your-lap” effect and more about the violin as an integrated member of the orchestra.

These sides had plenty of a quality that goes a long way in the world of classical music. As we went through the various copies, we noticed that the sound on the best sides was especially relaxed. (Compare that to the typical Classic Records Heavy Vinyl pressing, which, on the relaxation scale of one to ten, rates a lot closer to one than it does to ten. Between one and two, probably.)

Once you spot the relaxed copies, you find they tend to do every other thing well, and that’s what it takes to score top grades in shootouts — doing everything well.

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Barney Kessel / Barney Kessel Plays Carmen

More Barney Kessel

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) grades bring Kessel’s inspired jazz album to life on this early Contemporary stereo LP (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in years)
  • Tubey Magic, richness, sweetness, dead-on timbres from top to bottom – this is a textbook example of Contemporary sound at its best
  • The sonics are gorgeous – all tube, live-to-two-track, direct from the Contemporary studio to you, on glorious un-remastered analog vinyl
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you

The Sound We Love

For those of you who appreciate the sound that Roy DuNann (and Howard Holzer on other sessions) were able to achieve in the 50s at Contemporary Records, this LP is a Must Own (unless you already have it, which is doubtful considering how hard it is to find a copy in clean condition). Their stuff just doesn’t get any better than this.

From an audiophile point of view, how can you beat a Roy DuNann recording of so many instruments? It’s audiophile heaven.

Talk About Timbre

Man, when you play a Hot Stamper copy of an amazing recording such as this, the timbre of the instruments is so spot-on it makes all the hard work and money you’ve put into your stereo more than pay off. To paraphrase The Hollies, you get paid back with interest. If you hear anything funny in the mids and highs of this record, don’t blame the record. (This is the kind of record that shows up audiophile BS equipment for what it is: audiophile BS. If you are checking for richness, Tubey Magic and freedom from artificiality, I can’t think of a better test disc. It has loads of the first two and none of the last.)

Two of the best sounding jazz guitar records in the history of the world were made by Barney Kessel for Contemporary: this one, and Music To Listen To Barney Kessel By. I used to have them both in my collection, but they long ago were sent to good homes.

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Bizet-Shchedrin / The Carmen Ballet / Rozhdestvensky

More of the Music of Georges Bizet

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish, this pressing of Bizet’s Masterpiece will be very hard to beat
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Both sides are open, high-rez, and spacious, with depth like you will not believe and some of the least shrill string reproduction we have ever heard for this music (which is the main problem we run into on the album)
  • Gloriously exciting and fun music that belongs in any audiophile’s collection – side one is where the action is, and this side one had some of the better sound we heard all day
  • This spectacular Demo Disc recording is big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – here is the sound we love
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.
  • This album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would be well advised to get to know better.

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Letter of the Week – “Some records absolutely JUMP out of my speakers. Including all of yours. It’s a thrill.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Georges Bizet Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while back:

Hey Tom, 

I’m the one who purchased Ricci’s Carmen yesterday. I can’t wait to receive it! I was surprised and delighted to read on your blog about the copy that sold on ebay for *even more* than I paid for mine. (I never even look at records on ebay anymore – after getting caught up in a couple of bidding wars, I just don’t feel good buying that way anymore.)

This is my fifth purchase from you. It’s my first white hot stamper, it’s the most I’ve paid so far, and it’s the first time I am purchasing a record that I don’t already have multiple copies of. I’ve been dying to see if my system is up to the task of reproducing violin well, and this beautiful music seems the ideal test case. I’ve been on a spree, but I’m going to have to cool it for a while after this. I’ll keep an eye out for a good copy of Avalon, or Leonard Cohen’s Songs, or maybe if a DSOTM comes back up, I won’t chicken out this time…

Aaron

Aaron,

I hope you like the record as much as we did. It is indeed a very special album, and I hope it sounds like six hundred dollars worth of music and sound to you. The Heifetz recordings have especially good violin reproduction if you want to keep going in that direction.

Take your time on picking up Hot Stampers, most of them come around again eventually, no since going broke!

Thanks for your letter.

TP

Thanks Tom! I’m having a lot of fun with my records from you, but yes, now it’s time to delight in what I’ve got for a while. I’ll probably go back to being a lurker/drooler on your site, the way I was for several years until recently.

I upgraded to a Soundsmith Sussurro cartridge during the pandemic, and now, some records absolutely JUMP out of my speakers. Including all of yours. It’s a thrill. You’re letting me see what my system is capable of, and instead of that new amp I thought I needed, I’m buying some records from you instead.

Plus, when a cartridge/system gets the *tone* of instruments right, there’s no mistaking it, and you didn’t even realize you were missing anything. It’s easy to think a recording and system are accurate, but then you hear accurate reproduction and you just say “oh.”

Aaron

Aaron,
You make a good point. If I could get more audiophiles to try a Hot Stamper pressing, and simply take the time to compare it to whatever Heavy Vinyl LP they might have been listening to, I think there would be a lot of them saying “Oh.”

How will they ever know what they are missing if they won’t try a different approach?

I think you know the answer as well as anyone. You were a lurker, and now, having actually heard some Hot Stamper pressings, you are a believer.

The records speak for themselves.

As I wrote to a customer not long ago, “explaining doesn’t work. Only hearing works.

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Barney Kessel Plays Carmen on the Original Stereo Pressing

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now

A recent shootout produced this shootout winning pressing with amazing sound.

STUNNING Shootout Winning grades or close to them bring Kessel’s inspired jazz album to life on this original Contemporary stereo LP (the first copy to hit the site in years).

Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “tubey, sweet, and lively midrange”…”lots of room around the guitar and horns”…”excellent space and detail”…”great energy”

Tubey Magic, richness, sweetness, dead-on timbres from top to bottom – this is a textbook example of Contemporary sound at its best. The sonics are gorgeous – all tube, live-to-two-track, direct from the Contemporary studio to you, on glorious un-remastered analog vinyl.

For those of you who appreciate the sound that Roy DuNann (and Howard Holzer on other sessions) were able to achieve in the 50s at Contemporary Records, this LP is a Must Own (unless you already have it, which is doubtful considering how hard it is to find a copy in clean condition). Their stuff just doesn’t get any better than this.

From an audiophile point of view, how can you beat a Roy DuNann recording of so many instruments? It’s audiophile heaven.

Talk About Timbre

Man, when you play a Hot Stamper copy of an amazing recording such as this, the timbre of the instruments is so spot-on it makes all the hard work and money you’ve put into your stereo more than pay off. To paraphrase The Hollies, you get paid back with interest. If you hear anything funny in the mids and highs of this record, don’t blame the record. (This is the kind of record that shows up audiophile BS equipment for what it is: audiophile BS. If you are checking for richness, tubey-magic and freedom from artificiality, I can’t think of a better test disc. It has loads of the first two and none of the last.)

Two of the best sounding jazz guitar records in the history of the world were made by Barney Kessel for Contemporary: this one, and Music To Listen To Barney Kessel By. I used to have them both in my personal collection (but they have since gone to good homes).

Such a wonderful idea for an album. The melodies from Bizet’s Carmen are unforgettable and perfect fodder for jazz improvisation. Don’t think that this is just guitar and rhythm. This is a full band with lots of horns, clarinets of all kinds, bassoons, oboes, flutes, piano, vibes — the variety of sounds to be found on this album is practically unlimited. And with Roy DuNann’s engineering, you will never hear richer, fuller sound with more accurate timbres for all the instruments mentioned above. The guy was a genius. His recordings define High Fidelity for me. I know of none better.

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