More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sergei Prokofiev
The standard Classic Records failings are as obvious and as irritating on this remaster as they are on practically all of the others.
A lack of ambience. Smeary and hard strings. A lack of Tubey Magic. Overall veiled and recessed presentation.
The Bottom line: This is not a good sounding record.
It should go without saying that the real Mercury pressing is none of these things.
It has long been our judgment that Classic Records made very few good records. Why should this one be any different?
These Mercury releases apparently fooled a lot of audiophiles though. Allow me to quote a writer with his own website devoted to explaining and judging classical recordings of all kinds. His initials are A.S. for those of you who have been to his site.
Classic Records Reissues (both 33 and 45 RPM) – These are, by far, the best sounding Mercury pressings. Unfortunately, only six records were ever released by Classic. Three of them (Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky) are among the very finest sounding records ever made by anyone. Every audiophile (with a turntable) should have these “big three.”
Obviously we could not disagree more. I’ve played all six of the Classic Mercurys. The Ravel and Prokofiev titles are actually even worse than the Stravinsky we reviewed here on the blog.
