_Composers – Bruch

Bruch & Mozart / Violin Concertos / Heifetz

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

  • Heifetz’s lively performance of these wonderful violin concertos debuts on the site with excellent Living Stereo sound  throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing
  • This is right at the top of all the recordings Heifetz made for RCA in the glory days of Living Stereo — there may be titles that are comparable, but we have yet to hear a violin concerto recording that can surpass it
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally relaxed and spacious, with the rich, textured sheen of the violin that Living Stereo made possible in the 50s and early 60s clearly evident throughout these pieces
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more real than practically all of the other copies we played
  • LSC 2652 is one of the hardest Heifetz titles to find with the original Shaded Dog label, and quite a few of the copies we paid premium prices for turned out to have marks or other problems in the vinyl
  • Skip the Red Seal pressings from the 70s — the ones we played were bright, screechy, thin and missing just about everything that makes the early pressings so amazingly good

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Bruch in Living Stereo – Two Vastly Different Sides

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

What to Listen For – Side to Side Differences

This listing is at least ten years old, perhaps even fifteen.

WHITE HOT Stamper sound for the Bruch side of this original RCA Shaded Dog, one of the best Heifetz concerto titles of all time. (I’m trying to think of a Heifetz title that sounds better and coming up blank.)

[UPDATE: As of 2023 we know of a couple so stay tuned.]

This was our shootout winner on side two, beating all comers, earning our highest grade, the full Three Pluses (our blue ribbon, gold medal, and best in show all wrapped into one). The sound is nothing short of DEMO DISC QUALITY.

If you want to demonstrate the magic of Living Stereo recordings, jump right to the second movement of the Bruch. The sonority of the massed strings is to die for. When Heifetz enters, the immediacy of his violin further adds to the transcendental quality of the experience. Sonically and musically it doesn’t get much better than this, on Living Stereo or anywhere else.

The violin is captured beautifully on side two. More importantly there is a lovely lyricism in Heifetz’s playing which suits Bruch’s Romantic work perfectly. I know of no better performance.

The performance of the Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 5 is also wonderful, but the sound is not. Want proof that two sides of the same record can have vastly different sound? Here it is. Note how oversized the violin on side one is, how smeary the orchestra, how little texture there is to anything in the soundfield. This side one is no Hot Stamper.

And yet somehow side two won our shootout with the best sound we have ever heard for the Bruch. Go figure.

Side Two – Bruch / Scottish Fantasy

A+++, White Hot Stamper sound!

Pay special attention to the richness of the lower strings, a sonic quality that is not nearly as pronounced on side one as it is here on side two. The violin is also more present on this side. There’s lots of space around it, and the orchestra manages to stay uncongested in the loud sections for the most part (some congestion is heard on even the best Living Stereo records).

[Not so much anymore — we’ve made a lot of audio progress in the last 15 years!]

The energy, transparency and overall sweetness of the sound could not be beat! It’s the clear winner.

Having played more than a dozen Shaded Dogs of this album over the years, we would note that the sound on this side two is a bit dry, as is almost always the case.

[I don’t think we agree with the sound being dry anymore, but it could be slightly dry I suppose, just not enough to call attention to the fact. To see records that definitely can be dry, click here.]

The Bruch brings to mind some of Tchaikovsky’s works. It’s so sweet and melodic, it completely draws you into its world of sound. This is a work of unsurpassed beauty, music that belongs in any serious music collection.

Side One – Vieuxtemps / Concerto No. 5

A or so. Lovely Romantic music that’s much better than I remember it from our last shootout.

Classical Music

I’ve commented often over the years of the benefits to be gained from listening to classical music regularly. Once a week is a good rule of thumb I would say. I love rock and roll, jazz and all the rest of it, but there is something about classical music that restores a certain balance in your musical life that can’t be accomplished by other means. It grounds your listening experience to something perhaps less immediately gratifying but deeper and more enriching over time. Once you become habituated to listening regularly to these great works of art, the effect on one’s mood is easy to recognize.

Of course it should be pointed out that the average classical record is a sonic disaster. There are many excellent pressings of rock and jazz, but when it comes to classical music, being so much more difficult to record (and reproduce!), the choices are substantially more narrow. Most of what passed for good classical sound when I was coming up in audio — the DGs, EMIs, Sheffields and other audiophile pressings — are hard to listen to on the modern equipment of today.

I would say we audition at least five records for every one we think might pass muster in a future shootout, and we’re pulling only from the labels we know to be good. I wouldn’t even take the time to play the average Angel, Columbia or DG, or EMI for that matter. The losers vastly outweigh the winners, and there are only so many hours in a day. Who has the time?

All that said, it should be clear that assembling a top quality classical collection requires much more in the way of resources — money and time — than it would for any other genre of music. We are happy to do the work for you — our best classical pressings are amazing in every way — potentially saving you a lifetime of work… at a price of course.

Further Reading

Bruch / Scottish Fantasy – These Are the Stampers to Avoid

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

More Stamper and Pressing Information (You’re Welcome!)

The 70s Red Seal pressings we’ve played recently have all left a lot to be desired, but, since we had one sitting on a shelf in the backroom with lower stampers, we figured what the hell, let’s clean it up, throw it into our next shootout and hope for the best.

As you can see, the best was not to come.

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with obvious shortcomings.

Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down into the three major labels that account for most of the best classical and orchestral titles we’ve had the pleasure to play.

London/Decca records with weak sound or performances

Mercury records with weak sound or performances

RCA records with weak sound or performances

We’ve auditioned countless pressings in the 36 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands.

This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made, through trial and error. It may be expensive and time consuming, but there is simply no other method for finding better records that works. If you know of one, please write me!

We are not the least bit interested in pressings that are “known” to sound the best.

Known by whom? Which audiophiles — hobbyists or professionals, take your pick — can be trusted to know what they are talking about when it comes to the sound of records.

I have never met one, outside of those of us who work for Better Records. I remain skeptical of the existence of such a creature.

We’re looking for the pressings of albums that actually do sound the best.

If you’re an audiophile with an ear for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre.

And if we can’t beat whatever LP you own or have heard, you get your money back.  It’s as simple as that.

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Bruch / Vieuxtemps – Scottish Fantasy / Concerto No. 5 / Heifetz

More of the music of Max Bruch (1838-1920)

More Classical Recordings Featuring the Violin

  • Boasting two Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sides, this early Shaded Dog pressing of these wonderful Romantic works could not be beat
  • The Heifetz Scottish Fantasy on side two is our favorite and contains the best sound we know for the work
  • The orchestral passages are rich and sweet, the violin present, all of its harmonics gloriously intact
  • As usual for a Living Stereo Heifetz violin recording, he is front and center, with every movement of his bow reproduced clearly, without being hyped-up in the least
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • We will have some Super Hots coming soon for those of you looking for quieter vinyl

If you want to demonstrate the magic of Living Stereo recordings, jump right to the second movement of the Bruch. The sonority of the massed strings is to die for. When Heifetz enters, the immediacy of his violin further adds to the transcendental quality of the experience. Sonically and musically it doesn’t get much better than this, on Living Stereo or anywhere else.

The violin is captured beautifully on side two. More importantly, there is a lovely lyricism in Heifetz’s playing which suits Bruch’s Romantic work perfectly. I know of no better performance.

The Bruch brings to mind some of Tchaikovsky’s works. It’s so sweet and melodic, it completely draws you into its world of sound. This is a work of unsurpassed beauty, music that belongs in any serious classical collection.

The performance of the Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 5 is also wonderful, and the Romantic music is even better than I remember it from our last shootout.

(more…)

Mendelssohn and Bruch / Violin Concertos / Ricci

More of the music of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

  • With two outstanding sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto sound as good as it does here, and the Bruch Concerto on the second side is every bit as good
  • The glorious sound of these truly great 1958 All Tube “Decca Tree” recordings from Kingsway Hall is faithfully captured in all its beauty on this disc, and once the needle hits the groove it won’t take you long to hear it
  • 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
  • With sonic grades like these, you can be sure this pressing will be competitive with nearly all comers, including the performances by Heifetz, Rybar, and others that have impressed in the past
  • The violin is so sweet and present, so rich, natural and real, you will forget you’re listening to a record at all

This is one of the ALL TIME GREAT violin concerto records. In Ruggiero Ricci’s hands both works are nothing short of magical. If you want to know why people drool over Golden Age recordings, listen to the violin. Take care, when you hear it you may find yourself drooling too.

The staging of the orchestra and violin is exactly the way we want to hear it in our heads. Whether it would really sound this way in a concert hall is impossible to say — concert halls all sound different — but the skill and the emotion of the playing is communicated beautifully on this LP. This is a sweetheart of a record, full of the Tubey Magic for which London recordings are justly famous.

As we noted above, engineering took place in the legendary Kingsway Hall. There is a richness to the sound of the strings that is exceptional, yet clarity and transparency are not sacrificed in the least.

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Mendelssohn and Bruch / The World of the Great Classics, Vol. 3

More of the music of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

  • A superb Decca reissue with Double Plus (A++) sound from the first note to the last
  • A spectacular Demo Disc Quality Orchestral recording – big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic
  • The violin is so sweet and present, so rich, natural and real, you will forget you’re listening to a record at all
  • The glorious sound of these truly great 1958 All Tube “Decca Tree” recordings from Kingsway Hall is faithfully captured in all its beauty on this very disc

This is one of the ALL TIME GREAT violin concerto records. In Ruggiero Ricci’s hands both works are nothing short of magical. If you want to know why people drool over Golden Age recordings, listen to the violin. Careful, when you hear it you may find yourself drooling too.

The staging of the orchestra and violin is exactly the way we want to hear it in our heads. Whether it would really sound this way in a concert hall is impossible to say — concert halls all sound different — but the skill and the emotion of the playing is communicated beautifully on this LP. This is a sweetheart of a record, full of the Tubey Magic for which London recordings are justly famous.

As we noted above, engineering took place in the legendary Kingsway Hall. There is a richness to the sound of the strings that is exceptional, yet clarity and transparency are not sacrificed in the least.

(more…)

Violin Concertos – Ideal for Testing Table Setup

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

More VTA Advice

This is one of the ALL TIME GREAT violin concerto records. In Ruggiero Ricci’s hands both works are nothing short of magical. If you want to know why people drool over Golden Age recordings, listen to the violin. Careful, when you hear it you may find yourself drooling too.

The staging of the orchestra and violin is exactly the way we want to hear it in our heads. Whether it would really sound this way in a concert hall is impossible to say — concert halls all sound different — but the skill and the emotion of the playing is communicated beautifully on this LP. This is a sweetheart of a record, full of the Tubey Magic for which London recordings are justly famous.

As we noted above, engineering took place in the legendary Kingsway Hall. There is a richness to the sound of the strings that is exceptional, yet clarity and transparency are not sacrificed in the least.

String Tone

It’s practically impossible to hear that kind of string sound on any recording made in the last thirty years (and this of course includes practically everything pressed on Heavy Vinyl). It may be a lost art but as long as we have these wonderful vintage pressings to play, it’s an art that is not being lost on us.

It’s also as wide, deep and three-dimensional as any, which is, of course, all to the good, but what makes the sound of these recordings so special is the timbral accuracy of the instruments in every section.

I don’t think the Decca engineers could have cut this record any better — it has all the orchestral magic one could ask for, as well as the resolving power, clarity and presence that are missing from so many Golden Age records.

This is the kind of record that will make you want to take all your heavy vinyl classical pressings and put them in storage. They cannot begin to sound the way this record sounds. (Before you put them in storage or on Ebay, please play them against this pressing so that you can be confident in your decision to rid yourself of their insufferable mediocrity.)

VTA and the Violin

This is truly The Perfect Turntable setup disc. When your VTA, azimuth, tracking weight and anti-skate are correct, this is the record that will make it clear to you that your efforts have paid off.

What to listen for you ask? With the proper adjustment the harmonics of the strings will sound extended and correct, neither hyped up nor dull; the wood body of the instrument will be more audibly “woody”; the fingering at the neck will be noticeable but will not call attention to itself in an unnatural way. In other words, as you adjust your setup, the violin will sound more and more right.

And you can’t really know how right it can sound until you go through hours of experimentation with all the forces that affect the way the needle rides the groove. Without precise VTA adjustment there is almost no way this record will do everything it’s capable of doing. There will be hardness, smear, sourness, thinness — something will be off somewhere. With total control over your arm and cartridge setup, these problems will all but vanish. (Depending on the quality of the equipment of course.)

We harp on all aspects of reproduction for a reason. When you have done the work, records like this are nothing less than GLORIOUS.

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Bruch & Mozart / Violin Concertos – Were We Wrong?

More Recordings Featuring the Violin

Living Stereo Orchestral Titles Available Now

Many years ago we wrote the following review for LSC 2472:

Superb sound. The violin is wonderful on both sides. The Mozart is absolutely gorgeous; the best I’ve ever heard it.

The orchestra on the Bruch side gets a little congested in the louder passages, which is typical for records of this era.

Laredo plays these pieces beautifully. The Bruch is an especially romantic work and his violin sings sweetly and with deep emotion throughout. The Mozart is more spritely and he plays it with the light touch it requires. You will have a hard time finding a better violin concerto record. This ranks with the best of them.

More recently we got in a nice 1S/1S pressing that sounded thick and dark, even after a good cleaning.

Were we wrong years ago? Hard to say. That copy from many years ago is gone.

Three things we always keep in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound like we remember it did, or think it should:

  1. Our standards are quite a bit higher now, having spent decades critically listening to vintage classical pressings by the hundreds.
  2. Our stereo is dramatically more revealing and more accurate than it used to be.
  3. Since no two records sound the same, maybe the one from long ago actually did sound as good as we thought at the time.

All things considered, the consensus would now be that LSC 2472 is very unlikely to be as good a record as we used to think it was.

A classic case of live and learn and also a case of progress in audio, probably. Who can say for sure?

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Bruch – Airless, Smeary and Low-Rez on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

It should go without saying that a good original pressing kills the Classic reissue, and the Classic version is one of the better Classics.

It might earn a grade of D or C, simply because it might sound about as good as the typical Red Seal reissue from the ’70s.

Still, it’s no match for the real thing, not even close. The Classic is airless and low-rez, with smeary strings, which means that all the subtleties of the music and the performance will be much more difficult to appreciate. 

I dare say that were you to hear a top quality copy it would be all but impossible to sit through the Classic ever again. (That might be true for all Classic records — once you hear the real thing it’s hard to imagine be able to tolerate the sound of this reissue.)

OUR HOT STAMPER COMMENTARY

WHITE HOT Stamper sound for the Bruch side of this original RCA Shaded Dog, one of the best Heifetz concerto titles of all time. (I’m trying to think of a Heifetz title that sounds better and coming up blank.)

This was our shootout winner on side two, beating all comers, earning our highest grade, the full Three Pluses (our blue ribbon, gold medal, and best in show all wrapped into one). The sound is nothing short of DEMO DISC QUALITY.

If you want to demonstrate the magic of Living Stereo recordings, jump right to the second movement of the Bruch. The sonority of the massed strings is to die for. When Heifetz enters, the immediacy of his violin further adds to the transcendental quality of the experience. Sonically and musically it doesn’t get much better than this, on Living Stereo or anywhere else.

The violin is captured beautifully on side two. More importantly there is a lovely lyricism in Heifetz’s playing which suits Bruch’s Romantic work perfectly. I know of no better performance. (more…)

Bruch & Mozart / Violin Concertos / Heifetz in 2010

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

Years ago we wrote:

This is a very old review, probably from the early 2010s, so take it for what it’s worth. I suspect we could find a much better sounding copy of the album today than we could back then, before we had the cleaning systems and playback equipment we do now.

All that turned out to be true.

In 2024 we did another shootout for this album, our first in more than ten years! I am happy to say the sound was a knockout on the best copies, some of the finest violin concerto sound we have ever heard.

Live and learn is our motto, and progress in audio is a feature, not a bug, of record collecting at the most advanced levels. (“Advanced” is a code word for having little to no interest in any remastered pressing marketed to the audiophile community. If you want to avoid the worst of them, we are happy to help you do that.)

Our old comments follow:

Both sides of this Shaded Dog pressing of Heifetz and the New Symphony Orchestra of London have sound that earned the quite respectable sonic grades of A+ to A++.

Side one is tonally correct and lively, but suffers from a bit of the all-too-common tube smear, no doubt from the mastering chains and record presses that were in use at the time.

Most modern mastering chains and record presses are, to our ears, even worse, so this is not to denigrate the engineers at RCA in any way. It’s simply to say that with Tubey Magic you often get tubey smear. (more…)