Classical Music – Decca, Mercury, RCA

A list of many of the Heavy Hitters on Decca, London, Mercury and RCA that we’ve done shootouts for over the years. Many of these are Must Own recordings from the Golden Age.

Herrmann – The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann

More of the Music of Bernard Herrmann

  • This vintage pressing of the National Phil’s performance of selections from three of Herrmann’s classic “phantasmagorical” film scores boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • A superb recording with a huge three-dimensional stage, open, clear, extended up top and down low — the sound on this pressing is nothing short of amazing
  • 4 stars: “The sound glitters, some of the brightest and richest audio of its period (attested to by the album’s being part of Decca/London Phase 4 Stereo), and the performances have a dignity and intensity that makes the music — drawn from the key parts of Herrmann’s scores for the Ray Harryhausen-created fantasy films The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts — seem even more serious and profound than it originally did.”
  • If like us you’re a fan of blockbuster orchestral recordings, this is a killer album from 1975 that belongs in your collection.

Side one boasts some wonderful material from Mysterious Island and Jason and the Argonauts. Who else but Herrmann could have orchestrated such phantasmagorical goings on?

The Three Worlds Of Gulliver Suite takes up all of side two. The complete score from which the suite is taken can be found on the original Herrmann album The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a long-time and extremely rare member of the TAS Super Disc List.

This vintage London Phase 4 Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for —this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds. (more…)

Ibert / Saint-Saens / Bizet – Divertissement / Danse Macabre & more / Martinon

More of the Music of Saint-Saens

  • With two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy of these wonderful orchestral works that sounds remotely as good as this vintage London Blueback pressing
  • These sides are clear, full-bodied and present, with plenty of space around the players, the unmistakable sonic hallmark of the properly mastered, properly pressed vintage analog LP
  • The presentation of the orchestra is wide, tall, spacious, rich and tubey, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate

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Beethoven – Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) / Solti

More of the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven

  • Both sides of this vintage copy were giving us the rich and Tubey Magical Decca / London sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more real than most of what we played
  • A top performance from Solti and the Vienna Phil – it’s classic Solti: fast-paced, exciting and powerful
  • Solti’s Beethoven recordings from 1959 are superb, with the 5th and 7th being every bit as good – it’s his later recordings, the ones from the early 1970s, that we find fault with
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.
  • And if you have an original Decca or London of this title, be prepared to be knocked out by how much better this later pressing sounds — knocked out like we were, truth be told

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Various Artists – Paris 1917-1938 / Dorati

More Music Conducted by Antal Dorati

  • Boasting two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this original Maroon Label pressing of these delightful orchestral works is certainly as good a copy as we have ever heard
  • 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, and the crazy thing is we bought this one sealed, unplayed, so don’t expect to find one quieter than this, they didn’t know how to make them any quieter
  • The sound is big and open, and like so many Mercury recordings with the London Symphony, it’s rich and full-bodied, not thin and nasally as is so often the case with their domestically recorded releases
  • In many ways this album would certainly serve quite well as an audiophile Demo Disc – the timbre of the wide array of instruments used is right on the money
  • For those who haven’t been to our Skeptical Audiophile blog, this is a good example of a record which has the same stampers on every copy we played, but only one sounded the way this one does
  • The good stampers and the bad stampers are the same stampers, more evidence that the only way to find a pressing this good is to have a pile of cleaned copies and play them one at a time
  • This record was previously on the TAS Super Disc list but has since been dropped, which is only fitting since the current crop of nitwits running the show there has been watering the list down with one crappy title after another — many on Heavy Vinyl — since HP passed in 2014

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Beethoven – Symphony No. 4 / Ansermet

More of the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven

  • A vintage London pressing of Ansermet and the Suisse Romande’s wonderful performance, here with big, rich, Tubey Magical Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides have an abundance of energy, loads of detail and texture, remarkable transparency and excellent clarity – all qualities the best classical pressings have in abundance
  • The texture on the strings is captured perfectly – this is an area in which modern pressings fail utterly, and without good string reproduction, especially in the lower registers, a Beethoven symphony is simply not a pleasurable experience when reproduced on highly resolving equipment

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Mahler – Symphony No. 1 / Solti

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • Boasting two huge, powerful and tubey Double Plus (A++) sides or BETTER, we guarantee you’ve never heard Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 sound remotely as good as it does on this vintage London pressing
  • The sonic are big and rich, lively and open, with an abundance of depth and huge climaxes that hold together
  • Everything that we listen for in a great classical recording can be heard on this copy – it’s immediate, dynamic, very low distortion, spacious, and alive
  • We had one original unboxed Decca, and what a disappointment it was after hearing so many great sounding London pressings
  • Mastered by Stan Goodall, it was not remotely competitive on either side with the work of Harry Fisher
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

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Falla – Three Cornered Hat / Ansermet

More of the Music of Manuel de Falla

  • An early London pressing of Falla’s orchestral spectacular with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from start to finish, just shy of our Shootout Winner – this copy is a true Demo Disc in the world of vintage classical vinyl
  • 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
  • When you play the best pressings of this title it’s almost hard to believe how well recorded it is – even Billboard in 1961 noted the brilliant sound jumped from their speakers
  • “Anyone interested in theatrical music will know that within a few months the work had earned the category of a ‘classic’ and since then has been placed in the annals of great ballets such as Petrushka and Schéhérazade.”
  • If you’re a fan of delightful orchestral showpieces such as these, Decca’s wonderful recording from 1961 belongs in your collection
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

This is High Fidelity Audiophile Gold, with bells, drums, voices, trumpets, strings, woodwinds and more, all sounding so real it will take your breath away. The Golden Age tapes have clearly been mastered brilliantly onto this vintage London vinyl.

No doubt you have run into something like this in our classical listings:

This London is energetic, dynamic, spacious, transparent, rich and sweet. James Walker was the producer, Roy Wallace the engineer for these sessions from 1961 in Geneva’s glorious Victoria Hall. It’s yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording. 

We were impressed with the fact that this pressing excelled in so many areas of reproduction. The illusion of disappearing speakers is one of the more attractive aspects of the sound here, allowing the listener to inhabit the space of the concert hall in an especially engrossing way.
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Hi-Fi a la Espanola / Fennell

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • An original Plum Label Stereo Mercury pressing (the first copy to ever hit the site) with a huge, powerful and tubey Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Both of these TAS-approved sides boast an abundance of energy, loads of rich detail and texture, superb transparency and excellent clarity – the very definition of Demo Disc sound
  • Don’t expect to see anything but the real FR pressing when you get this one home — the RFR pressings are not remotely as good and did not even qualify for the lowest Hot Stamper grade on both sides
  • We owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for championing records such as this one – who is fit to carry his mantle today? (Besides us of course!)
  • We have been working up a shootout for this title for a very long time — after hearing how dubby and veiled the Classic Record pressing of the album was, we knew only the real thing would be worth doing

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Suppe – Overtures / Solti

More Imported Pressings on Decca and London

  • Solti and the Vienna Phil’s exquisite performance of Suppe’s Overtures debuts on the site with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this original London Stereo pressing
  • Lovely string tone and texture, rich bass, a big hall, no smear, lovely transparency – the sonics here are hard to fault
  • This recording is overflowing with the kind of rich, spacious, Tubey Magical sound that can only be found on vintage vinyl

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Wagner / Excerpts from Operas / Dorati

More of the Music of Richard Wagner

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, we guarantee you’ve never heard this underrated Wagner album sound remotely as good as it does here
  • It’s also fairly quiet at the high end Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Mercury is one of the few labels that can bring to life the power of the orchestra that Wagner’s music demands, and the engineers (Robert Eberenz, et al) do not disappoint (particularly on side two)
  • One of the better Watford Town Hall recordings (The Firebird would be another one), this album was recorded in 1959 and it fully captures the magic of the venue as only an All Tube Recording / Mastering Chain from that era can (also particularly on side two)
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this Mercury recording from 1960 belongs in your collection.

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