Masterpieces of Orchestral Music

Classical and Orchestra Masterpieces

Britten / Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra

More of the music of Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • An early UK Wideband London stereo pressing with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • 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
  • The Young Person’s Guide is on side two of this album, and that is the better sounding side here
  • The early London pressings often do well in our shootouts, but the Unboxed Decca originals are a step up in class, when and if they can be found with quiet enough surfaces
  • For those who have never heard the work, check out The Young Person’s Guide on YouTube – it is a tour de force of orchestral excitement, especially the percussion section

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Holst – The Planets / Previn – Our 2022 Shootout Winner

More of the Music of Gustav Holst

  • This early British EMI pressing is guaranteed to be the best copy of Holst’s Magnum Opus you have ever heard, with both sides earning top quality sonic grades
  • The vinyl on these mid-70s EMI pressings is never as quiet as we would like – with such a dynamic recording, one with so many quiet sections, lightly ticky vinyl is unavoidable
  • Previn’s and the LSO’s performances are without peer in our estimation
  • These sides are rich, clear and dynamic, with weighty brass, and the kind of dynamic power that lifts the energy level right into space
  • A TAS List Super Disc, with a performance that’s as spectacular as the recording (thanks to the work of the two Christophers)
  • This link will take you to more of our favorite orchestral performances with top quality sound

These sides have some of the best sound we have ever heard for the work, and that’s saying something considering the scores of recordings we have played of this famous and famously well-loved piece.

Fortunately for audiophiles who love The Planets but are disappointed by most performances, a group that includes us to be sure, the amazing sound found on this copy is coupled with a superb performance.

As you might imagine, on a big system this would make for a powerful listening experience, which is exactly the experience we ourselves had during our recent shootout. This copy actually deserves its place on the TAS List.

Both sides earned strong grades for their powerful energy and orchestral excitement, especially from the brass section, a subject we discuss at length below. (more…)

Khachaturian / Masquerade Suite / Kondrashin

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

EXCELLENT SOUND for this TAS List Shaded Dog, with each side earning an A++ grade and playing relatively quietly.

This is a BIG one folks, as most of you probably know already. It is not easy to find copies of this album with excellent sound and fairly quiet surfaces on both sides, and if you don’t believe me, I encourage you to try.

The violin is sweet and full of rosiny texture here. The whole string section is full of Living Stereo magic. The soundstage is wide and deep, the overall sound rich and warm. The midrange is nothing short of magical.

This is the kind of Golden Age recording that makes us audiophiles lose it. It’s one of the few legitimate reasons to take the TAS Super Disc List seriously in the first place. HP put records like this on the audiophile map and we owe him a debt of gratitude for having done so. Our musical lives are remarkably richer for it.

UPDATE 2022

Our current favorite recordings for sound and performance of The Comedians is this one.

These are the comments about a previous copy we had on the website (2001), many of which apply to this copy as well.

DEMO QUALITY. ONE OF THE BEST CLASSICAL RECORDINGS I HAVE EVER HEARD.

This recording is so natural it’s FREAKISH. You get swept up in the music completely because the sound allows you to forget it’s even a recording at all. All the normal adjectives apply; I won’t bother to repeat them here. If I ever make a list of the greatest recordings of all time, as Harry does with his “Best of the Bunch” dozen, you can bet that this record will be on it.

[I can’t say that I would be nearly as enthusiastic about this title nowadays as I was back then. Our playback system has gone through a lot of changes since 2001. The stereo I had back then (all tube, richer, darker and less revealing) no doubt was a better match for the best pressings of this recording than the one I have now.

Note also that we gave the record a Double Plus sonic grade, not the full Three Pluses a top copy would earn if it were as “freakishly good” as I thought at the time.]

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The Command All-Stars – Reeds and Percussion

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

More Records That Sound Better Loud

  • This original Stereo Command pressing was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Take the best sound you ever heard from the best authentic Mercury classical record and translate it into pop arrangements for clarinets, flutes, saxes, oboes, bassoons, and what do you have? Sound that leaps out of the speakers with absolutely dead on tonality
  • But what is most shocking of all is how vivid and accurate the timbre of every instrument is
  • Kudos to the exceptional skills of both Robert Fine (recording engineer) and George Piros (mastering engineer), two of the All Time Greats
  • If you appreciate exceptionally well recorded reed and percussion instruments, and what audiophile doesn’t?, this title from 1961 clearly belongs in your collection

This is one of the most phenomenal sounding records I have ever heard in my life. 

Yes, it’s multi-miked, and sometimes the engineers play with the channels a bit much (especially at the start of the first track).

That said, if you have the system for it, it’s very possible you have never heard most of these instruments sound this real, as if you were standing right in the studio with them. It’s that crazy good.

Which brings up a question: Who but Better Records is finding incredible Demonstration Quality recordings like these nowadays?

Harry Pearson used to. Jim Mitchell did back in the ’80s.

Are the Audiophile Reviewers of today picking up the baton that the giants of the past have dropped at their feet? I see little evidence of it. They seem more interested in discussing the newest Heavy Vinyl mediocrity to be released.

Is it really that much of a bother to look back to the Golden Age of analog recording and actually find a good sounding record to recommend? Apparently.

Not to worry. We are happy to fill the shoes of the greats who have passed, and here is a record that proves we have the chops to succeed in our endeavor, chops that no one else alive today seems to have.

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Rachmaninoff / De Falla – Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini / Nights In The Gardens Of Spain

More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • The rich, textured sheen of the strings the RCA engineers achieved in the ’50s and ’60s is a joy to hear throughout these pieces
  • This is something the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience, because that sound just does not exist on modern remastered records the way it does on these vintage pressings
  • Tonally correct from top to bottom and as transparent as practically any vintage recording you may have heard, the combination of clarity and Tubey Magic here will be hard to beat
  • To see more of the best orchestral recordings with top quality sound we’ve done shootouts for, click here
  • If you’re a fan of Rachmaninoff and/or Rubinstein, we think this Living Stereo from 1960 belongs in your collection.

This superb Living Stereo recording checks off a number of boxes for us here at Better Records.

Until we heard the right later pressings, we had always been disappointed with this TAS List recording, wondering what all the fuss was about. The original Shaded Dog pressings we had played left a lot to be desired. Like many of the old records we audition, it was somewhat crude and congested, and badly lacked both highs and lows, our definition of boxy sound.

Well, now we know. The early Shaded Dog pressings have consistently worse sound than the reissues we are offering here.

We never offered the record as a Hot Stamper pressing because we didn’t think the sound of the originals was all that impressive, TAS List or no TAS List.

Mystery solved, and truly Hot Stampers have now been made available to the discriminating audiophile.

Harry’s list, as was so often the case, did not provide the information needed to find the pressing that captured all the qualities of the recording the way this one does.

Did Harry have a good later pressing? Did he have an original and simply liked it more than we did? We’ll never know.

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Vivaldi – The Four Seasons / Munchinger

More of the Music of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • An original London Wideband Stereo LP of Vivaldi’s most famous string works featuring excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • We have to give the performance honors to our London here over the Living Stereo – there is more energy and drive to the playing with Muchinger at the helm
  • 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 superb recording is big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – HERE is the sound we love
  • The Tubey Magical richness is exceptional on this copy (and the Living Stereo pressing we sell is even more Tubey Magical)

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Prokofiev & Rachmaninoff / Piano Concertos / Janis / Kondrashin

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • This pressing has White Hot Stamper (A+++) sound on side one – sound that must be experienced to be believed! – backed with stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • The finest recordings of the Prokofiev No. 3 and Rachmaninoff No. 1 – these performances by Janis are legendary, and with phenomenal sonics such as these, the combination of sound and performance here is virtually unmatched in our experience
  • So big, so, rich, so transparent, so dynamic and full of life, we guarantee you have never heard a better piano concerto record in your life
  • This is one of the two Must Own Mercury piano concerto recordings, the other being SR 90283, which often suffers from inner groove distortion — not to worry, as a matter of grading policy, we check the inner grooves of every record we offer on the site
  • For a more complete list, the highest quality recordings of piano concertos that we’ve auditioned to date can be found here
  • To see more of the best orchestral recordings with top quality sound we know of, click here

This is a superb early Mercury Plum label stereo pressing of two of Byron Janis’s most famous performances (along with the Rachmaninoff 3rd, which is every bit as good). It’s a longtime member of the TAS Super Disc list.

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 and rich, 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 simply find yourself in the presence of some of the greatest musicians of their generation captured on some of the greatest analog recordings of all time.

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Grieg / Piano Concerto and Favorite Encores / Rubinstein

Hot Stamper Pressings of TAS List Records Available Now

  • This superb recording of Grieg’s piano music returns to the site with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound on both sides of this vintage Shaded Dog pressing
  • The Lupu on Decca is the only other performance I would put in its league, and the sound of the best pressings of both recordings is comparable as well, so take your pick
  • A Must Own Piano Concerto from the Romantic era no collection should be without
  • These sides are big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with a wonderfully preset piano and plenty of 3-D space around all of the players
  • “But Grieg’s Concerto is much more than a vehicle for pianistic virtuosity. It has been described as a ‘tone poem for piano and orchestra’ in which an array of colors and moods unfolds. From the beginning of the first movement’s first theme, the piano and the instruments of the orchestra enter into an almost constant dialogue.”
  • More entries in our well recorded classical albums – the core collection
  • More well recorded classical albums available now

I had a chance to see the first movement of the work performed in a church some years ago. It was a thrill to be twenty feet from the performers of such exquisitely powerful music.

This copy is exceptionally lively and dynamic. The sound is BIG and BOLD, enough to fill up your listening room and then some. The piano is clean and clear, and the strings are rich and textured.

The great Artur Rubinstein’s performance of this wonderful work is superb, as is his performance of the shorter coupling works on side two.

Our Shaded Dog pressing here offers plenty of Living Stereo magic. This wonderful record boasts a natural orchestral perspective and superb string tone. It also presents the listener with a correctly-sized piano, which is fairly unusual for Rubinstein’s recordings.

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Tchaikovsky / Swan Lake Highlights / Fistoulari

More of the music of Tchaikovsky

  • This Demo Disc quality pressing of Fistoulari’s powerful and exciting recording (CS-6218) boasts STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout
  • 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
  • So transparent, dynamic and REAL, this copy raises the bar for the sound of ballet music on vinyl
  • One of the most popular ballets in the world, presented here with out-of-this-world Decca engineered All Tube Chain sound from 1961 – it’s a match!
  • For the Highlights of Swan Lake, we know of no better performance, and we certainly know of no better sounding recording on vinyl
  • It took us years to find enough copies to do this shootout – not many copies will play as quietly as this one, and many of them will have their inner grooves destroyed by the mistracking tonearms of the day
  • The big finish at the end of the second side is so powerful it might just take your breath away – show me a modern remastering with that kind of sound and I will eat it
  • “It is a superb account of Swan Lake, perhaps better than most recordings out there. Maestro Fistoulari and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam are in top form.”
  • If you’re a fan of delightful orchestral showpieces such as these ballet highlights, this LP from 1961 belongs in your collection

This London UK import is one of the best single-disc versions of the ballet we have ever played. This is the one folks, assuming you do not want a (nearly) complete performance of the work. (For that we recommend the 2 LP box set with Ansermet.)

Note that the big finale at the end of side two is loud and HUGE on this album. There is a touch of compressor overload, but no actual inner groove distortion. At first we thought the former may have indeed been the latter because we had a copy or two with chewed-up inner grooves.

This one plays clean to the end, and boy does it get loud and powerful at the climax of the work. (more…)

Vivaldi / The Four Seasons on Living Stereo

More of the Music of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

More Classical Masterpieces

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  • Tubey Magical Living Stereo orchestral sound for The Four Seasons is back at Better Records
  • With excellent Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this copy had the vintage analog sound we were looking for
  • 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
  • The better copies are simply bigger, richer and more open, with a more extended, sweeter high end
  • If you drool over the Tubey Magical sound that RCA and others achieved in 1960, this is the copy for you

This excellent Living Stereo pressing has the kind of clarity, harmonic texture and freedom from smear that few Golden Age recordings can claim. Through the effort and skill of the RCA engineers, that striking openness in the recording is combined with an immediacy in the sound of the lead string players, no mean feat. One rarely hears both except, of course, in live performance.

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.

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