Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now
I don’t know of another recording of the work that gets the sound of the piano better. On the properly-mastered, properly-pressed copies, the percussive quality of the instrument really comes through.
But that quality (along with lots of others) is only heard on the better copies.
The reissues (one with the later Tulips label, one with the earlier Large Tulips label) described below are at best passable, and some of them were just awful.
The note to the left makes clear that even some of the early Large Tulips label pressings had very bad sound. Watch out especially for 18A/15B stampers. They’re NFG: No F***ing Good.
As you can see from the notes above for this particular recording in the Black and White cover, one side was passable, earning our 1.5+ grade. That makes it a decent sounding record, I suppose, but it’s a long, long, long way from the best.
1.5+ is four grades down from the top copy. That’s a steep dropoff as far as we’re concerned. 1.5+ only hints at how good a recording this DG can be on the best pressings.
To see more records that earned the 1.5+ grade, please click here. (Incidentally, some of them are even on Heavy Vinyl. The better modern pressings have sometimes, if rarely, been known to earn Hot Stamper grades, and two recently shocked the hell out of us by actually winning a shootout. Wouldn’t you like to know which two!)
One Plus (1+) is a sub-Hot Stamper grade. We do not sell records that do not earn a grade of at least 1.5+ on both sides.
For those who might be interested, there’s more on our grading scale here.
Our Favorite Performance with Sound to Match
A recent listing for the album can be found here.
Without question this is a phenomenal piano recording in every way.
On the best copies the rich texture of the strings is out of this world — you will have a very hard time finding a DG with better string tone. This record does not have the shortcomings of the average DG: it’s not hard, shrill, or sour.
DG made plenty of good records in the 50s and 60s, then proceeded to fall apart, like most labels did. This is one of their finest. It proves conclusively that at one time — 1962 to be exact — they clearly knew exactly what they were doing.
It’s amazing how many piano recordings have poorly-miked pianos. The badly recorded pianos are either too distant, lack proper reproduction of the lower registers, or somehow smear the pounding of the keys into a blurry mess.
Are they badly recorded?
Or is it a mastering issue?
Perhaps a pressing issue?