overtures-highlights

Wagner / Excerpts from Operas / Dorati

More of the Music of Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • With two Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard this underrated Wagner album sound remotely as good as it does here
  • Mercury is one of the few labels that can bring to life the power of the orchestra that Wagner’s music demands, and the engineers (Robert Eberenz, et al) do not disappoint
  • One of the better Watford Town Hall recordings (The Firebird would be another one), this album was recorded in 1959 and it fully captures the magic of the venue as only an All Tube Recording / Mastering Chain from that era can
  • I’ve known how good the right pressings of this album can sound for more than twenty years — it’s about time we did the shootout!
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this Mercury recording from 1960 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1960 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Verdi / Rossini / Overtures and Intermezzos – Solti

More Classical and Orchestral Music

More Living Stereos

  • Off the charts “Triple Triple” (A+++) sound for this classic Decca engineered “Living Stereo” Victrola from 1965 – both sides of this pressing earned our top grade of A+++
  • Listen to how rich the cellos sound — this is Tubey Magical Analog and its most luscious and enchanting.
  • You could easily play one hundred classical albums and not hear this kind of sound!
  • If you have the real Living Stereo pressing (with the cool die-cut cover), let us send you this pressing to compare — who knows, you might like it even better than your Shaded Dog
  • Classic Records did this title back in the ’90s, and it was one of the worst of their sorry releases

This 1959 Decca recording is overflowing with the kind of rich, spacious, Tubey Magical sound that can only be found on vintage vinyl.

On this copy you will find As Good As It Gets sound. It’s so BIG and RICH you will have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from 1965, but that’s precisely what it is.

Ah but it’s a reissue from back in the day when they knew how to cut a record properly, regardless of its retail price.

The rich, textured, rosin-on-the-bow lower strings on this record are to die for. Find me a modern record that sounds like this and I will eat it.

And by “modern record” we hasten to include both modern recordings and modern remasterings of older recordings. NO ONE alive today can make a record that sound even remotely as good as this. To call it a lost art is to understand something that few vinyl-loving audiophiles appear to have grasped since the advent of the Modern Reissue, which is simply this: they can’t begin to compete.

After twenty years of trying and literally hundreds of failed examples the engineers of today have yet to make a record that sounds as powerful and life-like as this London from almost fifty years ago.

Fortunately for the both of us we are not trying to make a record that sounds the way this one does. We’re just trying to find one, and folks, we found the hell out of this one. (more…)

Rossini / Overtures / Maag – The Best on Record

More of the music of Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • With superb sound from start to finish, the orchestral power on display here is positively breathtaking
  • Wilkie’s Decca Tree recording is overflowing with the kind of rich, spacious, Tubey Magical sound that can only be found on vintage vinyl
  • Performances and sound like no other – Maag’s Rossini Overtures is in a league of its own
  • “You’d think Maag would approach the scores the way most conductors do: gung-ho and hell bent for leather. He doesn’t. In fact, Maag displays a good deal of reserve, calculating his interpretations for the biggest payoff. For instance, in William Tell he keeps the opening sections in check, and then he builds the final segment into a most-exciting whirlwind, the conclusion carrying you away.”
  •  When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from the late-’60s, but that’s precisely what it is.
  • Even more extraordinary, the right copies are the ones that win shootouts
  • Here is a list of records that, like this one, contain some of our Favorite Performances with Top Quality Sound

Maag breathes life into these works as only he can and the Decca engineering team led by Kenneth Wilkinson do him proud.

Everyone needs a good Rossini Overtures – the music is exciting and fun, not to mention Demonstration Quality on a pressing such as this. The combination of sound and performance on the best of the Maag-led Londons could not be equaled.

Gamba on London was much too sleepy for our tastes, and the famous Reiner on RCA left a lot to be desired. It’s mid-hall perspective and dynamic compression took all the fun out of this music.

After hearing the killer Maag pressings, nothing else would do!

Note that the orchestra is none other than the Paris Conservatoire, whose playing of the famously demanding Stravinsky Rite of Spring, under Monteux (LSC 2085), is absolutely stunning as well. (more…)

Brahms – Concerto for Violin and Cello on the 360 Label

More Recordings Featuring the Violin

More Vintage Columbia Pressings

  • An outstanding 360 copy of this wonderful Columbia recording – you’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish on this pressing
  • This copy showed us the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the violin and cello – not many Columbia recordings from this era can do that
  • This recording is big, clear, transparent and energetic, and is guaranteed to put to shame any Heavy Vinyl classical pressing you own
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s the proof

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Weber / Overtures / Ansermet

Decca and London Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now

GLORIOUS Super Hot Stamper sound or BETTER on side two of this original London Blueback UK pressing. Yes, it has the Decca / London sound we expect from Ansermet, the Suisse Romande orchestra, and the amazing Victoria Hall they recorded in — rich and spacious, with lovely texture to the strings.

But that’s not all. This record is exceptionally DYNAMIC. If you like listening to your records at realistic levels — the only way to fly to our way of thinking — then you had better watch your levels! The huge bottom end makes those dynamic passages a thrill to experience. Make sure your VTA is carefully adjusted — a big deal with us these days — and you will be in for the ride of your life.

Side Two

A++ to A+++. The only reason we did not award the full three pluses was that there is a touch of congestion in some of the loudest passages. Other than that there is practically nothing to fault with the sound! No smear, present and clear. (more…)

Overtures and Dances / Reiner – Were We Wrong? Probably

Hot Stamper Pressings of TAS List Super Disc Albums

Reviews and Commentaries for TAS Super Disc Recordings

This is a very old commentary. Lately every copy of this record that we have auditioned has left us wondering: what is the appeal?

Take this review with a large grain of salt and don’t spend a lot of money on this title unless you can easily return it.

We don’t think it sounds very good, and rather than continue to buy more copies, we are going to give up and write it off as a lost cause, TAS List or no TAS List.

This RCA Pink Label TAS List LP plays Mint Minus. Side one of this record sounds AMAZING, especially the Dvorak piece.

Here are the comments for the copy we recently sold on the site:

Superb string tone. This is one record that deserves to be on the TAS list, and you have to give Harry credit for going against the audiophile tide and recognizing a cheap, thin pink VIC! Side one sounds incredible. I do not ever recall hearing sound like this on this Victrola. It’s demonstration quality sound.

Classic Records remastered this record not long ago and ruined it.

This is what it’s supposed to sound like. (more…)

Verdi, et al. / Ballet Music From The Opera

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

200+ Reviews of Living Stereo Records

This Super Rare, Highly Collectible copy of LSC 2400 has vintage RCA Golden Age sound, for better and for worse. Even though the album was recorded by Decca, it’s got a healthy dose of Living Stereo Tubey Magic. There will never be a reissue of this record that even remotely captures the richness of the sound found here.  

And the hall is HUGE — so spacious and three-dimensional it’s almost shocking, especially if you’ve been playing the kind of dry, multi-miked modern recordings that the ’70s ushered in for London and RCA.

Side One

Big and lively. The Tubey Magical colorations are a bit much for us, with too much tube smear on the strings and brass to earn more than a single plus. [Note that we almost never put records with a grade this low on the site these days.]

Side Two

Even bigger and more spacious, with some smear caused by the serious amounts of tube compression being used, of course, but the quiet passages are magical. [Which is precisely what heavy tube compression is designed to accomplish.]

The Victrola Reissue

We much prefer the sound of the Victrola reissue, VICS 1206, which came out in 1966.

As for the Victrola pressing, we’re guessing — how could we possibly know for sure? — that less tube compression was used in the mastering.

It’s still plenty tubey, but more to our taste for not being overly tubey.

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Rossini et al. / William Tell and other Overtures – Bernstein – Reviewed in 2008

More of the music of Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Our Favorite Performance of Rossini’s Overtures – Maag and The PCO

This is a SUPERB SOUNDING Columbia Masterworks LP of favorite overtures, energetically conducted by Leonard Bernstein. It’s exceedingly rare to find a Columbia pressing with sound like this: there’s tons of tubey magic; the string tone is surprisingly good; there’s huge amounts of depth and the overall presentation is tonally rich, sweet, and correct in the best golden age tradition.

There’s a bit of compression in the loudest passages, especially on side two. But this is a small price to pay for an otherwise wonderful sounding, beautifully mastered and pressed Columbia 360 Label LP.

Carl Stern plays the cello solo on the piece by Suppe and the sound is to die for, every bit as good as the famous Mercurys and RCAs we know so well. Truth be told, the quieter passages on this record are the most wonderful. The sense of real musicians playing in space is palpable, especially on side one.

The other pieces on this record are Zampa Overture, Mignon Overture, Raymond Overture and Poet and Peasant Overture.

Jewels of Wolf-Ferrari / Santi / Paris Conservatory Orchestra

One of the jewels in the London catalog, with sweet, tonally correct sound and plenty of natural hall. Another good reason to love London records! Colorful, lively and fun music, played with verve and beautifully recorded.

Overtures, intermezzos and preludes — just the good stuff.

The album is made up of 10 shorter pieces. A real standout is the first band on side one.

Tchaikovsky / Reiner – The Best Sound Here Is Everything But the 1812

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Reviews and Commentaries for the 1812 Overture

The real stars here are NOT the 1812, but the three coupling works, which demonstrate, on this copy at least, The Real Power of the Orchestra. The remarkably rich, Tubey Magical and oh-so-rosiny Living Stereo strings and powerful, dynamic brass make this a real demo quality orchestral heavyweight.

Lizst’s Mephisto Waltz, Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides Overture, and the Tragic Overture by Brahms are the Must Own 36 minutes worth of music on the record.

A rare and wonderful early Living Stereo Shaded Dog pressing containing an outstanding performance from Reiner and the CSO on everything but the 1812.

Say what?

Yes, it’s true. After hearing the amazing Decca pressing with Alwyn conducting (currently on the site at $400 and worth every penny of it but with completely different coupling works) we knew early on that Reiner and the CSO were simply not competitive in terms of performance, and the RCA engineers also failed to capture the deep bass of the organ on their pressing.

What we were impressed with were the three other works, all played with verve and technical skill and as enjoyable as any music you can find on this site. Go to youtube to listen to them if you are not familiar with the works. All of them belong in a serious music collection, and these recordings (and our Hot Stamper pressings) do them proud.

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