_Conductors – Dorati

Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 3 / Janis / Dorati

The music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

  • Stunning sound for this classic Byron Janis Mercury album, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated with an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two
  • The piano is huge and weighty, the strings rich and highly resolving, and the overall presentation is powerful, balanced, dynamic and exciting like few other piano concerto recordings we have ever had the pleasure to audition
  • Not only is this the consistently best sounding copy we have had to offer in years, but we are happy to report that the vinyl is reasonably quiet for a vintage Mercury stereo pressing
  • If you have the system to play a record as big and powerful as this Mercury from 1961, we cannot recommend it any more highly
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.

Not only is the sound amazing — yes, it’s on the TAS Super Disc list, and for good reason: a copy as good as this one really is a Super Disc — but this copy has another vitally important characteristic that most copies of the record do not: no Inner Groove Distortion.

We can’t begin to count the times we have had to return (or toss) a copy of these famous Byron Janis records because the piano breakup for the last inch or so of the record was just unbearable. That’s a sound no serious listener could possibly tolerate, yet I would venture to guess that a great many Mercury Piano Concerto recordings suffer from this kind of groove damage.

Enough about those typically bad copies, let’s talk about how good this one is!

This is a reasonably quiet early Mercury Plum label stereo pressing of one of Byron Janis’s most famous performances (along with the Rachmaninoff 1st. It’s a longtime member of the TAS Super Disc list).

The sound is rich and natural, with lovely transparency and virtually no smear to the strings, horns or piano. What an amazing recording! What an amazing piece of music.

The recording is explosively dynamic and on this copy, the sound was positively jumping out of the speakers. In addition, the brass and strings are full-bodied, with practically no stridency, an unusual feat the Mercury engineers seem to have accomplished while in Russia.

Big, rich sound can sometimes present problems for piano recordings. You want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies pull off that trick without sounding thin. This one showed us a piano that was both clear and full-bodied.

With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND by any standard. Once the needle has dropped you will quickly forget about the sound (and all the money you paid to get it!) and simply find yourself in the presence of some of the greatest musicians of their generation, captured on the greatest analog recordings of all time.

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Stravinsky / The Firebird – Dorati

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

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  • One listen to either side of this pressing and you’ll see why this is one of the Top Mercury Titles of All Time
  • The Heavy Vinyl reissues – at 45 or 33, on one disc or four, makes no difference – barely begin to capture the energy and drive Dorati brings to the work
  • “The magic lies in the elaborate orchestration and the excitingly uneven rhythmic writing. Stravinsky changes the orchestration of his themes at each repetition, breaks them down into their constituent parts, pushes their accents across the bar-line, and moves them out of sync with their own accompaniments.”
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.
  • 1960 was a great year for classical recordings – other Must Own Orchestral releases can be found here.

Neither side has peak distortion or Inner Groove Distortion of any kind, which is rare for this exceptionally dynamic title in our experience.

Both sides are so clear, ALIVE, and transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Zero compression.

This pressing boasts rich, sweet strings, especially for a Mercury. Both sides really get quiet in places, a sure sign that all the dynamics of the master tape were protected in the mastering of this copy. (more…)

Compromised Recordings and the Rapture of the Purely Musical Experience

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

Core Collection Classical Albums with Hot Stampers Available Now

The best classical recordings of the ’50s and ’60s, like the wonderful Mercury you see pictured, were compromised in every imaginable way.

Yet somehow they manage to stand head and shoulders above virtually anything that has come after them. How is that possible?

Well, having taken advantage of scores of Revolutionary Changes in Audio that have come to pass since those days, finally we can hear them in all their glory on the kind of high quality playback equipment that exists today.

The music lives and breathes on those old LPs. Playing them you find yourself in the Living Presence of the musicians. You become lost in the performances captured in the grooves of these old records.

Whatever the limitations of the medium, they seem to fade quickly from consciousness. What remains is the rapture of the musical experience.

That’s what happens when a good record meets a good turntable.

We live for records like these. It’s the reason we all get up in the morning and come to work, to find and play good records. It’s what this site is all about — offering the audiophile music lover recordings that provide real musical satisfaction. It’s hard work — so hard that nobody else seems to want to do it — but the payoff makes it all worthwhile. To us anyway. Hope you feel the same.

The One Out of Ten Rule

If you have too many classical records taking up too much space and need to winnow them down to a more manageable size, pick a composer and play half a dozen of his works. Most classical records display an irredeemable mediocrity right from the start; it doesn’t take a pair of golden ears to hear it.

If you’re after the best sound, it’s the rare record that will have it, which makes clearing shelf space a lot easier than you might think. If you keep more than one out of ten you’re probably setting the bar too low if our experience is any guide.

Plenty of Vintage Pressings Don’t Make the Grade

Bad sounding vintage classical pressings on collectible labels are more common than you might think. We should know, we’ve played them by the hundreds. To do listings for them all would be a full time job. Here is just a small sample of some of the ones we’ve auditioned, broken down by label.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances

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Rachmaninoff – Speakers Corner Ruins a Classic Mercury, Part One

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

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

This commentary was written in 2004. We carried Heavy Vinyl back then, and for that, knowing what I know now, I can only apologize.

Back then, I thought I knew a great deal more about records and  how to reproduce them than I actually did.  Yes, I have to admit it: I suffered from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

On the bright side, there is one very powerful benefit that I gained from being so mistaken. Having failed to recognize my own shortcomings, the signs that someone thinks they know more than they do are easy for me to spot. Here is one of my favorite examples. I link to it a lot.

If you want to see the effect played out in the cyber world, go to any audiophile forum and start reading any thread about records you find there. The D-K effect is hard to miss. Some of the experts on these forums have even convinced themselves that they know things that cannot be known, which is always a sure sign they know a great deal less than they think they do.  

Our Old Commentary

Some thoughts on the new 180 gram Mercury reissues by Speakers Corner and a bunch of other record related stuff.

The Absolute Sound weighed in with their view of the series:

Speakers Corner has given these recordings the respect they deserve. The packaging is gorgeous: a black album titled “The Living Presence of 20th Century Music” and displaying the Mercury logo holds the three records with their original covers and liner notes. In addition, there are informative annotations on the music and Dorati, and a history of Mercury Living Presence…They sound at least as good and in some ways better than the originals…There are no negatives and not enough superlatives to describe these magnificent reissues. It’s rare that performance, sound, and musical value combine at this level in a recording.

Arthur B. Lintgen, The Absolute Sound, February/March 2004

Let me start by saying that I have not listened to a single one of the new Mercury titles.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me state for the record that the chances of the above statements being true are so close to zero that they cannot be calculated by anything but the latest Cray computer.

Has Speakers Corner produced a single classical record that’s better than a well-mastered, properly-pressed original pressing? One or two. Maybe. [These days we would say zero is the right number.]  So what are the chances they did so with these? Almost none I would say.

The above review reminds me of the nonsense I read in TAS and elsewhere in the mid-’90s regarding the supposed superiority of the Classic Living Stereo reissues. After playing their first three titles: 1806, 1817 and 2222, I could find no resemblance between the reviews I read and the actual sound of the records I heard.

The sound was, in a word, awful. To this day I consider them to be the Single Worst Reissue Series in the History of the World. [Presently there are too many contenders for that title to hold that view anymore.]

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Liszt / Smetana / Mussorgsky – Les Préludes / The Moldau / Night On Bald Mountain / Dorati

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

More Recordings on Mercury

  • Boasting superb Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout, this original copy will show you just how good the Mercury engineers were back in those days
  • 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
  • Dorati breathes life into these concert hall favorites as only he can, and the Mercury engineers (Fine and Eberenz) capture the excitement on tape as only they can
  • We have a preference for Dorati’s recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra, and a record like this will show you exactly why we do
  • Smetana’s The Moldau and Mussorgsky’s A Night On Bald Mountain take up all of this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side one and are close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winners
  • The exciting sound of Mercury lives on through the vintage disc they made all those years ago – you can forget the idea that anybody will come along and produce sound of this quality
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this LP from 1960 belongs in your collection

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Labels, Patterns and the Circle of Reason

Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

30+ Reviews of Mercury Classical LPs

This commentary was written more than ten years ago, but as far as I can tell, it still holds up!

RFR1/ 2.  This pressing has DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND.

Here is the sound that Mercury is famous for: immediate, dynamic and spacious. This record lives up to the Mercury claim: You immediately feel as though you are in the Living Presence of the orchestra.

This is precisely the kind of record that Speakers Corner would not have a clue how to master. I’d stake my reputation on it, for what that’s worth.

As you may know, I am one of the most vocal critics of the new [now long in the tooth] Speakers Corner Mercury series, and I can tell you without ever hearing their version of this recording that there is NO CHANCE IN THE WORLD they will ever cut a record that sounds like this. It’s alive in a way that none of their pressings would even begin to suggest. If you don’t believe me, please buy this record and play it for yourself. If you don’t agree, I will refund your money and pay the domestic shipping back.

This record also gives the lie to those who think that Vendor pressings are inferior. This is a Vendor and I would be very surprised if there’s a better sounding copy than this one. I’ve certainly never heard one.

People who like to read labels and find some sort of pattern or connection between the label and the sound of the record are living in a world of their own making. A world that exists solely in their head.

The stamper numbers are the only thing that can possibly mean anything on a record, and even those are subject to so much variation from pressing to pressing that they become only a vague, general guide.

This LP is a good example of a record that a misguided or misinformed record collector would pass up, hoping to find a better sounding non-Vendor pressing.

Of course, the circular reasoning that would result is that such a collector would buy the non-Vendor pressing, possibly with the exact same stamper numbers, hear how good it sounded, and congratulate himself on the fact that the non-Vendor pressings always sound so much better.

All without ever having done a comparison.

A good way to never be wrong.

This is what we mean by Unscientific Thinking.

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Classic Records 45 RPM Recut – This Is Your Idea of a Great Firebird?

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

Sonic Grade: D

Many years ago, a customer alerted me to a review Wayne Garcia wrote about various VPI platters and the rim drive, and this is what I wrote back to him:

Steve, after starting to read Wayne’s take on the platters, I came across this:

That mind-blowing epiphany that I hadn’t quite reached with the Rim Drive/Super Platter happened within seconds after I lowered the stylus onto the “Infernal Dance” episode of Stravinsky’s Firebird (45 rpm single-sided Classic Records reissue of the incomparable Dorati/LSO Mercury Living Presence recording).

That is one of my half-dozen or so favorite orchestral recordings, and I have played it countless times.

This is why I have so little faith in reviewers. I played that very record not two weeks ago (04/2010) against a good original and the recut was at best passable in comparison. If a reviewer cannot hear such an obvious difference in quality, why believe anything he has to say?

The reason we say that no reviewer can be trusted is that you cannot find a reviewer who does not say good things about demonstrably mediocre and even just plain awful records. It’s the only real evidence we have for their credibility, and the evidence is almost always damning.

I want a reviewer who knows better than to play such an underwhelming pressing and then waste my time telling me about it. He should tell us what a good record sounds like with this equipment mod. Then I might give more credence to what he has to say.

Reviewer malpractice? We’ve been writing about it for more than 25 years.

P.S.

This is one of the Classic Records titles on Harry Pearson’s TAS List of Super Discs (!).

P.P.S.

Allow me to quote a writer with his own website devoted to explaining and judging classical recordings of all kinds. His initials are A.S. for those of you who have been to his site.

Classic Records Reissues (both 33 and 45 RPM) – These are, by far, the best sounding Mercury pressings. Unfortunately, only six records were ever released by Classic. Three of them (Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky) are among the very finest sounding records ever made by anyone. Every audiophile (with a turntable) should have these “big three”.

Obviously we could not disagree more. I’ve played all six of the Classic Mercury’s. The Chabrier, Ravel and Prokofiev titles are actually even worse than the Stravinsky we reviewed.

This same reviewer raved about a record we thought had godawful sound, Romantic Russia on MoFi, a label that never met an orchestral string section it didn’t think needed brightening.

Find me a Mobile Fidelity classical record with that little SR/2 in the dead wax that does not have bright string tone. I have yet to hear one.

What is it with audiophile record reviewers? They seem to be taken in by the most unnatural sounding pressings. The world is full of wonderful vintage pressings that have no such problems. If you are an audiophile who feels himself qualified to write about records, shouldn’t you at least be able to hear the difference between a phony audiophile pressing and the vintage pressings it supposedly improved?

The Absolute Sound is a good example of this kind of malpractice. Most of the records on the old list were vintage pressings, and most of the classical titles set a high standard (the popular titles not so much). Now it’s full of second- and third-rate heavy vinyl recuts that are about as far from Super Discs as you can get.

We went to some pains to show the audiophile community exactly what is wrong with this famous audiophile favorite, and how they could learn to spot one of its most objectionable shortcomings.

The fact that one of the “bad” versions of the album is on the TAS List, side by side with the Living Stereo, is a sign that the standards currently in effect over there have fallen about as far as they can fall.

One of the greatest piano concertos ever recorded is on the list, but so is this unbelievably bad heavy vinyl repress of it. Surely somebody at The Absolute Sound can hear the difference. It’s not subtle.

But maybe it is to them. And that’s a sign that they should stop promoting the equipment they write about. Judging by their inability to tell a good record from a bad one, it must not be very good.

Further Reading

Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years. Feel free to pick your poison.

And finally,

A Confession

Even as recently as the early 2000s, we were still impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles seem impressed by.

We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.

Some audiophile records sound so bad, I was pissed off enough to create a special list for them.

Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed Mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see things the same way.

Respighi – The Birds / Brazilian Impressions / Dorati

More of the music of Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • This vintage TAS-approved Maroon Label Mercury pressing boasts superb Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • 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
  • This copy is everything that a good Mercury should be: dynamic, open, immediate, exciting, and of course, with Dorati and the LSO, beautifully performed
  • Both “The Birds” and “Brazilian Impressions” are wonderful sounding – we guarantee you’ve never heard a better copy of both works
  • This is yet another amazingly good sounding Mercury recording engineered by Robert Fine and produced by Wilma Cozart

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Haydn – Symphony Nos. 59 and 81 / Dorati

More of the music of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • This vintage Mercury Living Presence LP brings outstanding recording energy and presence to Haydn’s music with superb Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • 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
  • This recording is not your typical dry, bright, nasaly, upper-midrangy Merc – the sound is rich and smooth like a good London, with a big stage and lovely transparency
  • Dorati pushes the Festival Chamber Orchestra to dizzying heights of performance – if you find Haydn boring, try this record, it’s got the pacing and dynamic contrasts that bring the Master of the Symphony’s music back to life
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.

These are some of the best Haydn Symphonies I have ever heard on disc. Folks, until I heard Dorati and the Festival Chamber Orchestra perform these pieces I never knew there could be this much FIRE in Haydn’s music. (Please excuse the pun; the 59th Symphony is entitled “Fire”.)

Mercury brings the kind of recording energy and presence to this music that I have frankly never heard before. Credit must go to both Dorati and his players.

His tempi are fast and sprightly throughout, and the smaller orchestra allows the players to zig and zag with the musical changes much more quickly than would be the case with a larger and more inertia-bound group.

The FCO are so technically proficient and so light on their feet that Dorati was able to push them to dizzying heights of performance. For the first time I can honestly say that Haydn’s music really works — it’s wonderful!

(If you’ve ever heard Previn conducting Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony with the L.A. Phil from 1990 you will know what I mean. In his (their) hands the work is so lively it’s hard to hear it performed by anyone else. Bad digital sound but it’s worth it to hear the piece played with such gusto.)

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Rachmaninoff – Speakers Corner Mucks Up a Classic Mercury, Part Two

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

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

For some background, in 2005 we were still selling Heavy Vinyl. We were fans of DCC and Cisco and carried many of the Speakers Corner remasters.

But things were starting to look grim. With every improvement to our playback system, these modern reissues seem to be falling further and further behind.

In the late-’90s, Classic had released some Mercury titles which we’d auditioned and disliked immensely. In 2005 it was Speakers Corner’s turn to have at the Mercury catalog, and they went a different way, finding a “new sound” for the legendary recordings, completely unlike any vintage pressing we’d ever heard.

This was very upsetting. I felt the need to say something.

By 2007 it was clear that Heavy Vinyl was a lost cause and had no business being sold by any audiophile record dealer who cared about sound quality, most especially me. And that was the end of it. This Mercury was one of the records that helped me see the error of my ways.

Part 1 of this discussion of Speakers Corner’s Mercury Series can be found here.

A blog entry on the site from 2005 about the new Mercury reissue series that was coming out noted that:

I am expecting the new Rach 3rd (90283) later this week, and will report my findings as soon as I have a had a chance to evaluate it.

[A few weeks later I followed up with this:]

The news on 90283 is here. It came today. Are you ready? In one sentence:

The most opaque, dull and lifeless 180 gram reissue in the history of the world.

My blog entry from 2005 continues below, transcribed practically word for word.

I hope it’s becoming clear to people now that this series is an enormous fraud perpetrated against all right thinking (right listening?) audiophiles. I can’t imagine a worse sounding record. It makes the most opaque ’70s Phillips or London LP sound positively transparent next to this thick piece of crap. I pulled out my late label copy, far from the best sounding pressing I’ve ever heard, and it killed the new version. The trumpets sound like they’re playing from under a pile of blankets on this 180 gram LP. The sound is so bad it defies understanding.

And the sad thing, in some ways the saddest aspect of this very sad affair, is that I can safely predict right now, with absolutely no fear of being proved wrong, that every major record dealer will rave about it. Mark my words. Every one. Except me of course. But I’m not one of the majors. Thank god I don’t have to sell crap like this to make a living.

And every audiophile who reads a rave review in a dealer’s catalog or on a website should take it for precisely what it is: a naked grab for his money, nothing more, nothing less. It’s all about the money. It’s not about the sound. It’s not about the music. It’s just about money.

Any record dealer who would stoop low enough to take money for a record this bad is telling you something very important about his business: he either can’t tell a good record from a bad one, or he doesn’t care. Either one would make me take my business elsewhere. How do these guys stay in business? (Maybe the fact that most of their catalogs are now given over to equipment explains it.)

And you should be outraged at this kind of fraud. If you give money to retailers who so obviously have nothing but contempt for you, you share in the blame. You’re keeping these guys in business. It makes me think of the scene in Network where Howard the veteran newscaster talks directly to his audience:

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’

I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’

After playing this new Mercury, I was filled with questions.

What is to become of the record business?

Do we really need records that sound worse than the worse sounding CDs, at twice the price?

Should record dealers really be selling this crap?

Are audiophiles really being fooled by it?

Is it that easy?

Forget easy: How is it even possible?

When a record is this bad, doesn’t everybody hear it?

And if not, why not?

Hey folks, I’m just trying to find you some Better Records. That’s how I see my job. The current crop of companies producing new records — with a few exceptions like Cisco, S&P, even the new MoFi — are not making my job very easy, I can tell you that. [This is embarrassingly wrong of course. The bulk of the records put out by these labels did not stand the test of time.]

I don’t know what these other guys selling this crap are trying to do. It sure doesn’t have much to do with better records.

So back to the Mercuries.

Speakers Corner has a pretty spotty track record when it comes to making records. Some of their stuff is just junk. (Steely Dan, The Planets, We Get Requests — I could name fifty bad to truly awful sounding records they’ve made over the years.) We actually created a section for some of them, but there are so many I couldn’t find the time to list them all.

You’ll notice that we only carry a small fraction of the 100+ classical titles Speakers Corner has done, about fifteen at last count. They do better with Jazz; there we sell about twenty five of the better titles. Overall score? I would say one out of four is about right. Not bad. Not good, but not bad.

But better than the originals? That’s a preposterous claim that’s hardly worth responding to. But I had a few things on my chest I wanted to get off, hence today’s screed.

So why do we carry them? Well, some of them may be decent. I may not ever know though. They are so damn expensive due to the current exchange rates that I may not review them at all, as there is simply no profit in these records anymore.

Buyer beware obtains, but at least I’m honest about it, unlike some audiophile record dealers who want to hype these Mercuries as the Second Coming of Golden Age Vinyl. That, they definitely are not. (The First Coming was good enough for me, as you know. I am firmly on record as saying that the RCA, Decca, Mercury, London, etc. originals are the best sounding records ever made, bar none, and nothing I’ve heard has provided a shred of evidence to the contrary.)

Reports from ears I trust are not good, but that’s just on the Ravel disc. The originals are a fortune, the CDs don’t cut it, so what’s a mother to do?

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