_Conductors – Karajan

Tchaikovsky / Nutcracker Suite / Karajan – Reviewed in 2005

The Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

Album Reviews of the Music of Tchaikovsky

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This import pressing has some astonishing qualities, qualities we are not used to hearing on vintage Golden Age recordings such as this (or or any other recordings, truth be told). This 1964 release — our pressing is the whiteback reissue, which we tend to prefer — has 3-D-like clarity and spaciousness that we could hardly believe. The stage is DEEP and you can hear all the way to the back of it. The width of the stage is dramatically wider than practically any record I can remember playing in the last year or two. I felt as though my listening room got bigger when playing this record.

And the dynamics are explosive. This pressing can really get LOUD when it wants to.

In some respects it’s hard to beat. But not, alas, hard to fault.

It lacks weight down low, whomp as we like to call it.

The details: (more…)

Tchaikovsky – Piano Concerto No. 1 / Richter – Our Favorite Performance and Sound By Far

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

More Classical Music

This superb classical masterpiece makes its Hot Stamper debut with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND by any standard
When the brass is the way it is here – rich and clear, not thin and shrill – you have yourself a top quality DG pressing
Very little smear to the strings, horns or piano

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Ravel / Karajan Conducts Ravel – Karajan / Orchestre de Paris

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Minty looking EMI LP with quiet vinyl (for EMI anyway) and EXCELLENT SOUND!

I recently purchased a large number of EMI classical pressings from the ’70s, many of which had disappointing sonics. Without paying any attention to this particular record, I threw it on and was pleasantly surprised — it really sounded good! Checking the back of the cover (the old fold-over flap kind) I noted that this recording was from 1963 — of course it sounds great! EMI from that period is often AMAZING. It’s only later, when they got into quadraphonic, that their sound becomes vague, diffuse, hard and even sour. Some of the EMI records on the TAS List can sound that way, which is a real scandal in my opinion.

As for the performances, they are wonderful. This is not a german orchestra. The french know how to play their own music!

This record includes alborada de gracioso, rapsodie espagnole, valses nobles et sentimentales and more.

Tchaikovsky – Concerto For Violin and Orchestra – Karajan/ Ferras – Reviewed in 2008

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Near Mint original DG German Import with FABULOUS SOUND!

This large tulips label pressing has the sound only hinted at by the reissues. (This same recording is in the 6 LP Box set.) Lots of hall, with the kind of rich orchestral sound you don’t find on most DGs. Ferras is superb and Karajan is a master as well.

Tchaikovsky – Piano Concerto No. 1 – “I’m Surprised You Parted With This One”

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

More Piano Concerto No. 1

A distinguished member of the Better Records Orchestral Music Hall of Fame.

Phil is a long time customer who shares my love for this powerful performance. He knows full well how bad most copies sound — he has a few of his own to prove it. When he saw this beauty in the mailer he did what any self-respecting record lover would do: he jumped on it. Even at $500 he feels he got his money’s worth, and that’s a lot of money for a Deutsche Grammophon record, the kind that no record store in the world would charge more than ten or twenty dollars for. If only we could find more like it… (more…)