Top Producers – John Pfeiffer

Sibelius – Violin Concerto / Heifetz / Hendl

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

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  • This copy of the Sibelius Violin Concerto boasts outstanding Living Stereo sonics from 1960 and a fiery performance from Heifetz
  • It’s some of the best sound we have ever heard for the work, right up there with the Ricci on Decca/London
  • The nothing less than breathtaking performance by Heifetz may raise this one to the rank of First Among Equals for those of you who prize immediacy and energy in your violin recordings
  • If you have one of our killer Hot Stampers of the Beethoven or Tchaikovsky violin concertos, you know exactly the sound I am talking about
  • “In the easier and looser concerto forms invented by Mendelssohn and Schumann I have not met a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius violin concerto.”

Early Shaded Dog pressings of Heifetz’s records are known to have rarely survived in audiophile playing condition. Top quality early pressings in clean condition come our way at most once a year, which means shootouts for them get done infrequently. There are literally thousands of clean, vintage classical pressing sitting in our stockroom waiting for a few more copies to come our way so that we can finally do a shootout.

This copy plays quite well for a Shaded Dog. Side one plays Mint Minus Minus all the way through, with a little extra tickiness creeping in at the very end of the side.

Side two I am happy to report plays even quieter. It starts out Mint Minus Minus, but roughly three quarters of an inch into the side it begins to play more in the range of Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus, and does so for the remainder of the side.

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.

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Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 2 – Rubinstein / Wallenstein

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

200+ Reviews of Living Stereo Records

The original version of LSC 2265 as pictured is known as The Rubinstein Story. It comes with a deluxe gatefold cover and a lovely illustrated booklet tucked into an inner flap with biographical information about Rubinstein and commentary about the music of Chopin.

Of course we Hot Stamper aficionados want to know how it sounds, and the good news here is that side one is WONDERFUL. We awarded it the Super Hot grade of A++. The piano just sounds more REAL on this side than it does on the later pressing we played. It’s clear, solid and present, and the tonality is perfection.

Those of you who know your shaded dogs no doubt have had a few problems with your Rubinstein pressings in the past being too midrangy and forward, a sound that Rubinstein supposedly insisted on for his records. Not so on this side one I am happy to report. The sound is overflowing with Tubey Magic.

Ah, but side two is much more like the typical Rubinstein record, and in this case that means a letdown, with a too-hard sounding piano, the result of an upper-midrange boost. It’s spacious and the vinyl is quiet but the piano does not sound like it does on side one, oh well. One good side is pretty hard to find so consider this one a minor victory.