beethkreut

Beethoven / “Kreutzer” & Spring Sonatas / Rubinstein

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • This original Shaded Dog pressing of Rubinstein and Szeryng’s extraordinary performances of Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano (LSC 2377) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound from first note to last
  • Both of these sides are Tubey Magical, lively and clear, with the kind of three-dimensionality that will fill your listening room from wall to wall that only the best vintage vinyl can offer
  • The immediacy of Szeryng’s violin is simply in a league of its own, with some of the sweetest, richest, most “rosiny” violin tone we’ve had the good fortune to hear
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music

RCA is famous for its chamber recordings, which tend to be quite rare for some reason. Let’s be honest: we did not conduct this shootout with a dozen copies of the album. It would take us years to find that many clean pressings.

However, that said, we’ve played dozens and dozens of good violin recordings, and we have no problem recognizing good violin sound when we hear it. Don’t be fooled by the lack of Hot Stamper classical listings on the site. The vast majority of killer classical records never make it to the site; they go directly to our best customers, customers who want classical recordings that actually sound good. Not just the kind of Golden Age Recordings that are supposed to.

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The Cisco Pressing of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings with Heifetz Performing

An audiophile hall of shame pressing from Cisco / Impex / Boxstar / whatever.

The Cisco pressing of LSC 2577 should not have sound that is acceptable to any person who considers himself an audiophile.

There is no violinist in front of you when you play their pressing.

There is someone back behind your speakers under a thick blanket, and his violin sure doesn’t sound very much like a real violin — no rosiny texture, no extended harmonics, no real body.

In short, the sound of this reissue is much too smeary, veiled, and lacking in presence to be taken seriously.

Unfortunately for those of us who love good music with good sound, Cisco’s releases from this era (as well as DCC’s) had to fight their way through Kevin Gray’s transistory, opaque, airless, low-resolution cutting system. We discuss that subject in more depth here.

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Putting Your System to the (Violin and Piano) Test

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Do you want a recording that is going to put your system to the test? Well this is that record! The violin is REAL. As you compare equipment or tweak your system, you will hear the sound of that violin change and it should be obvious when it gets better and when it gets worse. 

The piano is also very well recorded.

If you lose some body to the piano you’re probably going in the wrong direction.

But since that direction would make the violin almost unbearable sounding, I’m going to guess that would be easily recognized as a mistake.

The balance between those two instruments on this recording is perfection, so if you get this record right, you’re making progress of the most important kind: toward musical naturalness.

Otherwise this violin, at least on the Kreutzer Sonata, is going to tear your head off.

Our previous Hot Stamper review follows.

The Beethoven, which takes up side one, is recorded in a fairly dry acoustic. The sound of the violin is very immediate. It’s quite a showpiece for Heifetz.

I much prefer the Bach on side two, however, which is recorded within a more natural hall acoustic. Sir Malcom Sargent conducts and Eric Freidman plays the second violin in this concerto, which is also his debut for RCA, according to the liner notes.

This piece was recorded in England and to me it has the rich, sweet, glorious sound of Living Stereo at its best.

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This Is How Wrong We Were about Shaded Dogs and Red Seals

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

This old (2010) and embarrassing commentary shows just how wrong we were about the sound of various pressings of this Living Stereo title, LSC 2377.

We much prefer the Shaded Dog pressings these days, as can be seen from our most recent listing.

To see our available Hot Stamper pressings of the work, please click here. For more reviews and commentaries, please click here.

Back in 2010 we liked reissue pressings of Living Stereo recordings a lot more than we do now. Only the advent of top quality cleaning equipment and much improved playback made it possible for us to reproduce the early Shaded Dogs in all their glory.

When my system was darker and less revealing, a lot of records that were mastered to be cleaner and brighter sounded great to me. Records like RCA Red Seal pressings, some OJC jazz titles, and lots of other bad records that I used to like were a good complement to my system back in those days. Now, not so much.

When we encourage our readers to get good sound so they can recognize and acquire good records, it’s because we learned that lesson the hard way, by getting lots of great recordings wrong.

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. The more progress in audio you make, the more you will  regret having wasted your money on them, and we hate the thought of seeing your hard-earned money go down the drain.

Here is our mistaken commentary from 2010:

The Shaded Dog original RCA pressings are the best, right?

Not in our experience. We think that’s just another record myth.

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Beethoven / “Kreutzer” Sonata & Bach / Concerto For Two Violins / Heifetz

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sides, this original Shaded Dog pressing of these classical violin performances will be very hard to beat
  • This copy 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
  • These sides are doing pretty much everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • Although the Shaded Dog originals, now that we know which stampers are the best, will always win our shootouts, the White Dog reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performance coupled with the highest quality sound. This record has earned a place on that list, beating out Heifetz’s other performance for RCA, LSC 2377

If you want a recording that is going to put your system to the test, this is that record! That violin is real. The piano is also very well recorded, and the balance between those two instruments on this recording is perfection.

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