_Performers – Rabin

Rabin / The Magic Bow – Another TAS List Oversight?

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Reviews and Commentaries for TAS Super Disc Recordings

This original Capitol record with Michael Rabin is ONE OF THE VERY BEST VIOLIN RECORDINGS we have ever played here at Better Records. The sound is OUT OF THIS WORLD! The immediacy of the violin tone is unbelievable — Rabin is in the room with you throughout the entirety of the record in a way that few recordings in our experience could hope to equal.

What more can we say, other than the music is every bit as good as the sound. If you love the Classical Romantic period, and who doesn’t?, these selections will have you in a world of sound and music rarely matched by anything but the best in live performance.

Another TAS List Oversight

This is another record that is not on the TAS List, but would certainly take top honors in a head to head shootout with any of the violin works to be found there.

TAS List Super Discs with Hot Stampers

Records that Do Not Belong on a Super Disc List

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Paganini / Concerto No.1 – Testament Records

The Music of Paganini Available Now

More Reviews of the Music of Paganini

Sonic Grade: C

We used to sell the Testament pressing you see pictured to the left. Many years later, in our review for the budget Angel Seraphim pressing, we said:

This copy KILLS the out of print Testament 180 gram version from circa 2000 (which is not a bad record by any means). Can’t say how it compares to the original — we haven’t had one in years.

When I was selling the Testament Heavy Vinyl pressing all those years ago, I had never heard an original.

But doesn’t it strike you as sad that even the cheapest domestic reissue from the ’70s (I think that’s when it was released), put out on a budget label, absolutely mops the floor with the higher priced, much more prestigious, ostensibly superior, imported from the UK Testament LP?

I was an audiophile then and I’m an audiophile now, and I am glad to say I’ve learned a few things about records in the last twenty or so years.

One of the things I leaned was that most Heavy Vinyl pressings are a fraud perpetrated on a far-too-credulous segment of the record buying public, principally made up of record buyers who describe themselves as audiophiles.

I fell for the hype twenty years ago but, as I say, I’ve learned a few things since then and now I know just how easily fooled most audiophiles are when it comes to buying records, especially the ones marketed to them by the major audiophile record dealers (who, truth be told, make even worse sounding records than this Testament. I’m looking at you, Mobile Fidelity and Acoustic Sounds).

Our Most Recent Review of a Hot Stamper Seraphim Pressing

The AMAZING Michael Rabin is the principal violinist. His playing of these exceptionally difficult pieces is legendary. Recorded by Capitol in the late ’50s, his fiery performance is breathtaking, with the kind of energy, excitement and technical proficiency that is second to none in our experience.

There’s a very good chance that you have NEVER heard a better sounding violin concerto record than this one. It’s clearly superior to most of the pressings that audiophiles would hold dear; we’ve played them by the score. The fact that it’s on a budget label reissue label, to my mind, is the icing on the cake. (There’s a valuable lesson here to be learned if only more audiophiles will make the effort to learn it.)

There are two recordings of the Paganini Concerto No.1 we like currently; this one, and the Menuhin on EMI. We prefer Rabin’s sound and performance, but the EMI engineers managed to record their orchestra with slightly more natural fidelity. Both are of course superb. (We love the mono recording Ricci did for London in the mid-’50s but the sound and surface quality are not competitive with the two recordings above.)

More entries in our Well Recorded Classical Albums – The Core Collection

Well Recorded Classical Albums from The Core Collection available on our site

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Paganini / Concerto No.1 & Wieniawski / Concerto No. 2 – Rabin

The Music of Paganini Available Now

Album Reviews of the Music of Paganini

  • These sublime concertos are correct and live sounding throughout with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades
  • This copy showed that it had the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the tone of the violin, and the orchestra sounds amazing – so rich and full-bodied
  • Both works are performed with skill and passion by the incomparable Michael Rabin
  • This record puts most of the TAS Super Discs to shame, and it’s on a budget reissue label. Hey Harry, how about them apples!?

The AMAZING Michael Rabin is the principal violinist. His playing of these exceptionally difficult pieces is legendary. Recorded by Capitol in the late ’50s, his fiery performance is breathtaking, with the kind of energy, excitement and technical proficiency that is second to none in our experience.

There’s a very good chance that you have NEVER heard a better sounding violin concerto record than this one. It’s clearly superior to most of the pressings that audiophiles would hold dear; we’ve played them by the score. The fact that it’s on a budget label reissue label, to my mind, is the icing on the cake. (There’s a valuable lesson here to be learned if only more audiophiles will make the effort to learn it.)

There are two recordings of the Paganini Concerto No.1 we like currently; this one, and the Menuhin on EMI. We prefer Rabin’s sound and performance, but the EMI engineers managed to record their orchestra with slightly more natural fidelity. Both are of course superb. (We love the mono recording Ricci did for London in the mid-’50s but the sound and surface quality are not competitive with the two recordings above.)

More entries in our Well Recorded Classical Albums – The Core Collection

Well Recorded Classical Albums from The Core Collection available on our site

(more…)

Paganini / Concerto No. 1 / Rabin / Goossens – Reviewed in 2011

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This is a rare and very nice looking Capitol LP with Very Little Sign of Play (VLSOP). The violin sounds rich and sweet, although the orchestral sound is a bit old school.

AMG Biography

Michael Rabin managed to be one of the most talented and tragic violin virtuosi of his generation. Hailed as a child prodigy, his talent matured gracefully into an adult level, but he failed to follow in his emotional growth, resulting in a cutting short of his career. He never reached the age of 36, yet remains one of the most fondly remembered of virtuoso violinists for listeners and fellow musicians such as Pinchas Zukerman, with whom he shared a teacher.