brittyoung

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

(more…)

Britten / Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra

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

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • An original UK Unboxed Decca stereo pressing with STUNNING Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on both sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • This one plays Mint Minus Minus to EX++ throughout, with no audible marks and no groove distortion of any kind, which is not bad considering it is an early pressing from 1964
  • We learned in our shootout that the London pressing can also be quite good, but none of them earned the kinds of grades the early Deccas did
  • 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

(more…)

Britten / Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra / Ozawa

The sound of this White Hot Stamper side two is SUPER TRANSPARENT — you can hear all the way to the back of the hall and then some! There’s so much ambience on this pressing it forced us to reevaluate the other copies in light of the sound we were discovering here.

As if that wasn’t enough, it had energy and immediacy we simply did not expect to hear. The sound is big and bold during the loud passages, but sweet and delicate when, for example, the woodwinds are spotlighted in the composition. (more…)

Mussorgsky / Pictures At An Exhibition – A Good Record (Potentially), Not a Great One

More of the music of Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

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

This Chicago Symphony recording by RCA in 1968 has that BIG HALL SOUND we love here at Better Records. Multi-miking is kept to a minimum, which allows the listener to visualize the orchestra from a more natural perspective than other recordings of the work you may have heard. 

The sound is open and spacious, with lovely texture to the strings. The larger horns are especially well-captured here, Their dark and powerful sound, coupled with the fact that the recording is so dynamic and full-bodied, can really be quite moving. It might just send some shivers up your spine. (more…)