EXCELLENT SOUND and quiet vinyl on both sides of this London LP (CS 6193) featuring the great Ruggiero Ricci performing solo violin pieces.
Side two in particular has a sweet, clear top end that really shows you the detail in the violin.
Side one is transparent and tonally correct but a bit dark, without all the clarity and sweetness of side two.
Violin sonatas by Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev and Hindemith.
This is a RARE and WONDERFUL SOUNDING original Capitol pressing of Milstein playing pieces for violin and orchestra by Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Saint-Saens and others. The recording of the Mozart Rondo on side one boasts DEMO DISC quality sound. Side one is amazingly rich, sweet and tubey magical. The violin is tonally correct, with the kind of immediacy few violin records (in our experience) manage to capture as well, while still retaining the correct size of the instrument. (more…)
This is the first time a disc from a Reader’s Digest box set has made it to the site, and we’re starting off with a bang — The Firebird Suite and La Mer are the two pieces on record 7 of the set, and both of them are knockouts. We have a devil of a time finding good recordings of either work, and to find SUPERB better than Super Hot Stamper sound (A++ to A+++) for both back to back on one disc is a surprise indeed.
You may remember that recordings from these sets were reissued by Chesky back in the ’90s, with mediocre sound of course, as all their reissues are mediocre at best. We never carried a single one of them, even when we were carrying reissues.
I remember the first time I heard some of the records from this Scheherazade set and was knocked out — here was Tubey Magical RCA Living Stereo sound at a fraction of the price the real RCAs were commanding, a price I could not begin to afford.
The problem — and it’s still a problem, though less so — is the vinyl. These sets were produced cheaply in order to be priced affordably (under $20 for 10 LPs in a box!), and that means the best vinyl was simply not part of the budget. To find pressings that play even Mint Minus Minus is not easy, even today. Back then, before the advent of modern enzyme-based cleaning fluids and expensive record cleaning vacuum machinery, there was no way to get most of the vinyl to play even that well. (more…)
This Mercury RFR pressing of SR 90143 contains Hindemith’s Symphony In B Flat, Schoenberg’s Theme And Variations Opus 43a and Stravinsky’s Symphonies Of Wind Instruments.
All three pieces sound quite good here, and we’ve rated both sides between A+ and A++ overall. The sound is very dynamic and spacious throughout in the best Mercury tradition.
Mercury was also known for its top quality performances of landmark 20th century works such as these, and here, as expected, Fennell and his venerable Eastman Wind Ensemble do not disappoint. (more…)