Many music lovers miss the sound from vinyl pressings.
Many others have yet to discover how pleasant the sound can be.
Most of our albums are mastered from vinyl LP pressings and earlier
recordings (before 1953) from 78 rpm discs. It is our ability to
recreate, in the digital age, the sound from the disc era that many of
our customers find most enjoyable.
Unlike modern digital recordings tracks in our
albums do contain some distortion, and the occasional surface noises,
but for many listeners these "defects" are soon forgotten.
Our albums are available from many download sites.
We
are in the process of moving our recommended download site from iTunes
to Qobuz where you can download or steam in higher quality, but at the
same price as iTunes.
What the Critics Say
The following are reviews by Brian Wilson at Music
Web International
Reissue of the Month
(May
2016)
"If you had asked me to nominate classic recordings of the Ravel and
Honegger, these would have been among the front-runners alongside
Pierre Monteux (Ravel, various Decca couplings) and Herbert von Karajan
(Honegger, DG Originals). Add an enjoyable account of the Porgy and
Bess Symphonic Picture by its arranger and some authoritative Delius
from Sir Thomas Beecham in a collection running over the putative
80-minute limit and this must receive a clear recommendation,
especially as the Ansermet Honegger is otherwise available only in a
3-CD set and RCA’s own transfers of the Ravel seem to come and go, more
often the latter.
"The 78 recording of the Delius requires only a very
small degree of tolerance, far less than I expected: it sounds more
like an early LP transfer – indeed, it’s greatly superior to the
Fontana and Philips LPs on which it was released. I’m surprised to see
that Trevor Harvey praised the sound on
the Philips transfer because I recall quite the opposite: I’m sure that
I would have warmed to the North Country Sketches immediately if they
had sounded as good as this. I
listened to the Naxos transfer of the same recording as streamed
in lossless sound from their own classicsonlinehd.com and marginally
preferred the Beulah transfer as having more body.
"Beecham transposed the order of the two central
Sketches, Winter Landscape and Dance, presumably to suit the exigencies
of 78 sides: both Naxos and Beulah have reset them in the correct
order.
"There’s no connecting theme other than very fine
performances of
twentieth-century music – and the fact that two of the composers died
in 1937, by pure coincidence – but I’m certainly not complaining. "
Reissue of the Month
(April 2016)
"Rimsky’s Antar is made from the same kind of material
as Scheherazade: lovely tunes but without the structure which keeps the
Arabian Nights-inspired work more or less in order. It’s certainly no
symphony, though the composer worked on it several times. Ansermet uses
the 1897 revision for this version, generally regarded as the first
European stereo recording in May 1954 – and very good stereo, indeed,
for its time in this transfer. Beulah score, too, by offering it on a
single release – and a very generously-timed release, too.
"The Rachmaninov recording, though later, doesn’t
stand up quite so well at top volume but it’s another fine transfer of
another very fine, passionate performance
"The Glazunov first appeared on HMV CLP1140, with
Lecocq’s Mam’zelle Angot. The music is compiled mainly from The
Seasons, a very fine recording of which with Robert Irving conducting
the Concert Arts Orchestra used to exist on EMI: unfortunately ousted
by their later Svetlanov recording. I don’t believe Birthday Offering
is otherwise available apart from a short 8-minute section on an
inexpensive 100 Best Ballet collection. It’s well played, recorded and
transferred."
