beethvioli-best

Beethoven & Kodaly / Serenade & Duo / Heifetz, Piatigorsky

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER bring these two wonderful chamber pieces to life on this early Shaded Dog pressing of LSC-2550
  • 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 Living Stereo sound is rich and transparent and, unlike a lot of RCA’s chamber recordings, not dry, with tonality that is right on the money
  • The performers are present and the transients of their instruments are not in the least bit smeared, vintage tubes or no vintage tubes in the recording chain

The performers on this recording are Heifetz, violin / Primrose, viola / Piatigorsky, cello.

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Beethoven / Violin Concerto / Heifetz / Munch

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • Our superb vintage pressing of this brilliant Living Stereo recording – from 1956! – boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER 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
  • The orchestra is wide, tall, spacious, rich and tubey, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate
  • White Dogs and Shaded Dogs can both sound good on this title – just avoid the Red Seals and later pressings if you are looking for the best possible sound
  • 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.
  • If you’re a fan of Beethoven’s music, this superb All Tube Recording from 1956 belongs in your collection.
  • This Classic Records pressing, however, was a piece of garbage, and we made our position clear right from the start

The reproduction of the violin here is superb — harmonically rich, natural, clean, clear, resolving. What sets the truly killer pressings apart is the depth, width and three-dimensional quality of the sound, as well as the fact that they become less congested in the louder passages and don’t get shrill or blary.

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Beethoven / Haydn / The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

This is a lovely sounding pressing of cello and violin, with smooth, natural, tonally-correct sound and correctly-sized instruments, something you don’t hear often on recordings with Heifetz. They tend to have huge violins and small orchestras.

In these chamber works perhaps the engineers had an easier time of getting it right.

The sound is transparent, spacious and three-dimensional in the best Living Stereo tradition.

If you love the sound of violin and cello, played by virtuosi of the highest order, this is the record for you.

Side One

Beethoven: Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1

Side Two

Haydn: Divertimento for Cello and Orchestra 
Rozsa: Tema con Variazioni

This is an older classical/orchestral review

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.

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

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.

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Mendelssohn and Prokofiev – Violin Concertos / Heifetz / Munch

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

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

  • Both sides of this early Shaded Dog pressing have outstanding Living Stereo sound for Mendelssohn and Prokofiev’s concertos, earning Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • 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
  • A truly superb recording with huge, spacious, dynamic, lively sound – Tubey Magical richness is a big plus too
  • These performances by Heifetz and the Boston Symphony under the baton of Charles Munch are some of the best we’ve ever heard – Heifetz is on fire with passion for these exciting pieces
  • As usual for a Living Stereo Heifetz violin concerto recording, he is front and center, with every movement of his bow clearly audible without being hyped-up in the least
  • Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto takes up all of this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side two and is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner

No violin concerto recording can be considered to have the real Living Stereo sound if the violin isn’t right, and fortunately this violin is very very right, with the kind of rosiny texture and immediacy that brings the music to life right in your very own listening room.

The Prokofiev concerto is a longtime member of the TAS Super Disc List.

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 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.)

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Glazounov and Mozart / Violin Concertos / Heifetz

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Super Hot Stamper sound on side two of this Shaded Dog pressing, which is the side with Mozart’s Symphonie Concertante for violin and viola. The sound is wonderful, with lovely 1964 RCA Living Stereo Tubey Magic, presenting the violin solidly with spot-on timbre.

Side one, the Glazounov, earned a nearly-as-good sonic grade of A+ to A++. The violin on this side is full-bodied and present just the way we like it.

Side Two

A++, the body of the violin is reproduced here especially well, along with the rosiny texture of the strings. This side is a bit smooth and dark compared to the best we played, so we are calling it Super Hot. Its faults are few, its strengths many.

Side One

A+ to A++. The orchestra is rich, but there is some Old School smear to the strings and an Old School lack of top end. Overall the sound is quite good within these limitations. (more…)

Mozart / Mendelssohn / The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Reviewed in 2011.

The Mozart side of this Red Seal pressing from 1975 sounds AMAZING. I have never heard better staging for a chamber work of this kind. All five instruments are so clearly set apart from each other and tonally correct (for the most part) that it is nothing less than fascinating to be able to follow each instrument as it weaves its way through the score.

If you’ve suffered through the horrendously sour and screechy recordings Heifetz and Piatigorsky are known for in audiophile circles — LDS 2513 and LDS 6159 — you will be glad to know that this side one sounds NOTHING like them.   

(Reversing your polarity on LDS 6159 helps but it can’t fix sound that’s that bad.)

Side one is, as we say, wonderfully clear and transparent. It does not have as much warmth and fullness as one might want, so for those of you who have plenty of tubey magic to bring to the recordings you play, this may just be the best chamber work you have ever heard. It is a touch hot in the 3-4k region but this is a minor quibble. Tons of recordings from this era are, including most RCAs and Mercuries; Deccas and Londons less so.

Side Two Sucks

Side two of this pressing is smeary, boxy and opaque, a sound we come across quite often when playing the scores of Golden Age classical recordings we audition every month here at Better Records.

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Franck / Piano Quintette & Brahms / Heifetz, Piatigorsky et al. – Reviewed in 2013

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity.

A stellar reading of the Franck from this formidable group.

Side one of this Shaded Dog is excellent: rich, smooth and sweet.

The piano is exceptionally well-recorded, with real weight.

The Brahms is very good if you can reverse your polarity.    (more…)

Mozart & Turina / The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

This is a Super Hot Stamper Two-Pack that comprises a White Dog RCA original for side one and a Red Label reissue for side two, for the simple and obvious reason that the “bad” sides of each of these LPs are not nearly as good as the “good” sides. When you play the weaker sides you will no doubt appreciate why we felt it was appropriate to bundle two very different records together to make a truly SUPERB one.

If you’ve suffered through the horrendously sour and screechy recordings Heifetz and Piatigorsky are known for in audiophile circles — LDS 2513 and LDS 6159 — you will be glad to know that the two good sides here sound NOTHING like them. (Reversing your polarity on LDS 6159 helps but it can’t fix sound that’s that bad.)  (more…)

Various / The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with reversed polarity.

This IMMACULATE set has dry, edgy, screechy sound — until you reverse your absolute phase! Then it sounds pretty good! It certainly will never win any awards, but it’s practically unlistenable without the phase reversed. 

Now I can’t say that’s true for all six sides. I play graded all six sides — they range from M- to slightly worse, about as quiet as these Soria pressings ever are — but I only reversed the phase on side one after dropping the needle on the other sides and suffering through the brittle sound. (more…)