_Composers – Strauss, Richard

Also Sprach Zarathustra – Comparing 1954 to 1962

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Strauss Available Now

In 2023, we did a very large shootout for LSC 1806 and LSC 2609. LSC 1806 was recorded in 1954 but not released until 1960. It has been on the TAS Super Disc list for a very long time, if not actually from the very beginning. It’s long been considered the definitive recording by TAS Heads for sound and possibly for performance.

LSC 2609 came out in 1962. We prefer it over 1806, as the notes for our shootout make clear:

Initially, I thought I preferred LSC 1806. The amount of space and silky texture in the top end is hard to match. After a few comparisons, though, I began to miss the richer and more realistic midrange of LSC 2609. If anyone strongly prefers 1806 to 2609, they probably have a darker system or a smeary 2609.

The best copy of 1806 in our shootout earned the same Triple Plus grade on side one as our best 2609, slightly less on side two as it had somewhat steely strings.

Still, both are superb recordings. Head to head on big speakers in a custom room and all the rest, we know which recording we prefer.

Most audiophiles, including most of our customers, do not have a big-speaker system playing in a dedicated room, custom built and carefully treated in order to produce sound reproduction of the highest quality. They may prefer the original recording depending on how it sounds on the equipment they are using.

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Also Sprach Zarathustra by Way of Zubin Mehta – No Great Shakes

More of the music of Richard Strauss

A very good performance, with passable sonics.

But passable sonics are not going to cut it at the prices we charge.

Unlike many audiophiles and the reviewers who write for them, we have never been taken with most of the recordings of Zubin Mehta and the LA Philharmonic.

They almost always suffer from exactly the same problems that we heard on this album. We had about five copies on hand in preparation for a shootout, some of which I had noted seemed to sound fine, but once we listened more critically we started to hear the problems that eventually caused us to abandon the shootout. We ended up giving away the stock to our good customers for free.

Here is what my notes say:

By the way, if you do have some of these and want to play them, the 4G side two was the best we played, much better than any 6G side two.

This link will take you to our current favorite recording of the work.

Opacity Vs. Transparency

Note that we have been especially anti-heavy vinyl in our recent commentaries for their consistently opaque character, the opposite of what is necessary in order to hear into the music, deep into the soundstage, to see and hear ALL the instruments, even the ones at the back.

Try that with any Classic Record or Speakers Corner pressing. Our Hot Stamper pressings can show you precisely what you have been missing all these years if you have been collecting and playing releases from those labels and others like them.

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Does Your Pressing of Death and Transfiguration Have These Shortcomings?

More of the Music of Richard Strauss

Many of the later pressings of CS 6211 were not competitive with the earlier pressings, something we had no idea was true until we actually did the shootout.

This is why we do our shootouts with every kind of pressing we can find that has any hope of sounding good to us.

(This is of course something that cannot be predicted with much certainty. What we are saying is simply that we do not expect the German, Dutch, Japanese and such like pressings from other countries outside the UK to do well because they have almost never done well in the past, not for Decca recordings anyway.)

The notes on the left in the box are for the copies that did not do as well as our best copies.

If your copy of the album has any of the shortcomings we mention, and you would like a better pressing to play, rest assured we will have something for you down the road, as this is our favorite for both performance and sound.

Stamper Information

The stampers of the pressings that consistently came in last in our shootout had the mastering marking of L, which signifies the work of George Bettyes. He has done good work in the past, but odds are that any pressing of this title mastered by L is going to be inferior to those that are not.

Our advice: stick with E and G.

As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stamper numbers that consistently wins our shootouts for CS 6211.  Here are some of the others we’ve discovered through the shootout process.

Our notes for an exceptionally good sounding copy from the last shootout can be seen below.

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Tchaikovsky / Strauss – Romeo & Juliet / Till Eulenspiegel / Munch

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

More of the music of Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

  • Wonderful Living Stereo sound throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them
  • Hard to find them quiet, though – for whatever reason, this title was rarely if ever pressed on quiet vinyl
  • Our favorite performance of the Tchaikovsky — when you hear it played by the BSO, guided by the baton of the supremely talented Charles Munch, you know you are hearing the work performed with the greatest skill and interpreted as authentically as is humanly possible
  • Spacious, rich and smooth (particularly on side two) – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • Our White Hot Shootout Winner was simply amazing sounding — some of the best orchestral sound we have heard lately, especially audible in exceptionally breathy flutes and sweet strings
  • It was a quite a step up in sound quality over even the closest contender, which just goes to show how hard it is to come across these very special pressings no matter how many Shaded Dogs you play

A Must Own Record

This is a recording that belongs in any serious Classical Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.

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Strauss – Death and Transfiguration / Till Eulenspiegel / Karajan

More of the music of Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

  • This original Stereo London pressing of Karajan and the Vienna Phil’s performance of these classical pieces boasts stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Our notes for the two top copies mention how special some stampers are: “these are so tubey with tons of room and space — the massive tympani really shine”
  • These are superb readings of the works, and we know of no others that can compete with the sound of this Decca recording
  • Clear, transparent, rich, big, spacious, tonally correct, with Tubey Magical textured strings, this record is doing practically everything right, and that makes it a very special pressing indeed
  • 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

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Elgar / Strauss – Enigma Variations / Don Juan / Haitink

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • These two outstanding performances by Haitink and the London Phil (Enigma Variations) and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam (Don Juan) boast KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Both of these sides are doing everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well-balanced, yet big and lively, with such wonderful clarity in the mids and highs

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Respighi / Strauss – Pines of Rome / Don Juan / Kempe

More Orchestral Spectaculars

More Reviews and Commentaries for The Pines of Rome

  • With two top quality sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard The Pines of Rome sound remotely as good as it does here (unless you own one of killer Living Stereo LPs of the work)
  • This Readers Digest pressing of Kempe’s superb 1964 recording for Decca has glorious sound on both sides and plays reasonably quietly for any LP produced by this notoriously difficult label for audiophiles
  • There were only three performances with top quality audiophile sound, and our Wilkinson-engineered pressing here was right up there with the best we heard in our massive shootout
  • If you know anything about these works, you know that they have tons of top and bottom end, and it is the rare pressing that captures both
  • The texture and harmonic overtones of the strings are superb – as we listened we became completely immersed in the music on the record, transfixed by the remarkable virtuosity Kempe and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra brought to these difficult and demanding works 50 plus years ago

This shootout has been at least thirty years in the making — that’s how long I have been picking up these RDG sets, ever since my friend Robert Pincus turned me on to them all those years ago.

Around 2016 we surveyed the recordings of the work we had on hand, close to a dozen different performances I  think, and found them all wanting, save three: the Reiner (which is still on the TAS List), this Reader’s Digest pressing with Kempe (our second favorite, and a close second at that), and a London with Kertesz.

If a particular performance had any distortion or limitation problems in the higher frequencies, it was quickly rejected out of hand. Same with low end whomp and weight. On The Pines both are crucial.

No other pieces of music of which we are aware have so much going on up high and down low. This narrowed the field of potential Hot Stampers considerably. Great performances by top conductors could not get over these hurdles — high and low — time and time again.

For these reasons, it took us years to find the right recordings. We knew the Reiner would be hard to beat, but we kept trying record after record hoping that we could find one to wrest the crown away from what is widely considered the greatest recording of the works ever made.

The best pressings were doing everything right. There was plenty of top end, with virtually no harmonic distortion, and when I say plenty, I mean the right amount. Not many engineers managed to get all the highs correctly onto the tape, but Lewis Layton and Kenneth Wilkinson sure did.

So many recordings had screechy strings and horns. When the music would get loud — and the Pines gets very loud indeed, assuming the recording will let it — the sound would become unbearably harsh and unpleasant. This is the opposite of what should happen, and it was obvious that those recordings would not make it past the first round.

All three of the finalists could claim enthusiastic performances with powerful energy and top quality orchestral playing.

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Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 1 – 1957 Living Stereo Is Hard to Beat

More of the music of Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) 

  • Both sides of this vintage Victrola pressing are big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with a wonderfully present piano and three-dimensional space around the musicians
  • 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
  • I used to think that the Classic was better than the Victrola, but that was a long time ago, and I hear a lot of midrange magic on this LP that I don’t think you can find on practically any modern remaster, by Classic Records or anyone else
  • The Classic will be quieter though – we had a devil of a time finding Vics pressings with audiophile quality vinyl

I highly recommend this one back in the day, musically and sonically. Everybody loves Rachmaninoff, especially when Byron Janis is at the keyboard, and the Strauss piece is engaging on its own as well.

1957 stereo, can you imagine?

Here is a complete list of Living Stereo Classical titles we have available on the site at this time. On our blog you can find reviews for the hundreds of others we’ve auditioned over the years.

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Strauss / Death and Transfiguration and Till Eulenspiegel / Reiner

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

200+ Reviews of Living Stereo Records

This Plum Label Victrola has SUPERB better than Super Hot Stamper sound on side two, the side with Death and Transfiguration. It’s Tubey Magical, rich and sweet in the best Living Stereo tradition of recordings made during the Golden Age, in this case 1958. We had a Shaded Dog pressing of the recording in hand, LSC 2077, and it was better on side one but this Victrola was clearly better on side two.

And Reiner’s performance with the Vienna Phil is outstanding in every way. I have never heard the work performed better or sound better than it does on this very copy.

Side Two

A++ to A+++, nearly White Hot, and with a little more bottom end it might have won the shootout.

Clear, transparent, rich, big, spacious, tonally correct, with Tubey Magical textured strings, this record is doing practically everything we want it to.

Side One

A+ to A++, very much like side two but even more bass shy, which may become wearisome over the course of the whole side, depending on how loud you play the record and how full-bodied your system is.

A superb performance of the famous piece, played with verve. (more…)

Strauss / Horn Concertos – Tuckwell / Kertesz – A Top Copy from 2009

More vintage Decca/London recordings currently available

This is a fairly quiet 1967 Decca British LP with lovely sound. It’s tonally Right On The Money. The strings have lovely texture. The horn has a nice smooth quality, just like the real thing.

A solid record, guaranteed to beat the pants off the Speakers Corner 180 gram pressing, which is not a bad record, just not remotely as good as this one.

The sonic signature of the modern Heavy Vinyl Classical Reissue in Four Words: Diffuse, Washed Out, Veiled, and Vague