Just after Christmas, faced with a trip to hospital, I decided to treat myself to the latest Decca bumper box of VPO recordings, 65 CDs for about £115, although as usual it was cheaper at the time of first release.
The discs are in cardboard sleeves in a handsome box, no liner notes, but all the recording dates engineers and locations are listed in the handsome book accompanying the collection. All the original sleeves are printed in colour in the book, but not on the discs themselves.
I fancied this collection because there are surprisingly few duplicates for me, and many reissues of performers such as Schmidt-Isserstet, Mehta, Backhaus, Schuricht etc. Some choices are a little odd. Why are there no less than five CDs of Viennese waltzes, including a great deal of duplication in this New Year material? Admittedly we get performances by Knappertsbusch and Krips along with Boskovsky, but it does seem a rather lazily chosen selection.
A different conductor conducts, each Bruckner symphony, so we get Abbado, Stein, Bohm, Bohm again, Maazel, Stein, Solti, Solti, and Mehta. Again, the Brahms symphonies have Mehta, Schuricht, Bohm and Kertesz. The latter's first stereo recording of the New World Symphony is partnered by the fine Kondrashin version, and we also get Schiff in the Piano Concerto ( Not much of a favourite of mine)
I could enumerate many more interesting choices, but there is one serious disappointment, and that's the standard of mastering.I've made comparisons between discs in this box, and their earlier appearances on CD on labels like The Decca Sound, and in every case that I've checked so far the sound in the new edition is inferior. Just a few examples. The Curzon / Knappertsbusch Emperor sounds very lumpy and congested in the new edition, on the earlier release there's much more space and better piano clarity. It is rather odd, because the two Mozart concertos with Szell are fine.Similar problems afflict the famous Karan Planets. As for his Sleeping Beauty selection, there's really no comparison, the big climax and tam tam smash in the Adagio sound really coarse, as does Jupiter from the Planets.
Just one final oddity. Mehta conducts Gottfried von Einem's Philadelphia Symphony. I was curious about this one. The stereo positioning is very clear, but the whole performance has an intense piercing sound quality coupled with exaggerated dynamics. I can't help wondering whether this was an early Dolby recording and the transfer engineer has not set the de-dolby before mastering the disc.
This box contains some fascinating performances that haven't been around for quite a while, and it's very welcome, I just wish that the technical care matched the quality of the packaging.
The discs are in cardboard sleeves in a handsome box, no liner notes, but all the recording dates engineers and locations are listed in the handsome book accompanying the collection. All the original sleeves are printed in colour in the book, but not on the discs themselves.
I fancied this collection because there are surprisingly few duplicates for me, and many reissues of performers such as Schmidt-Isserstet, Mehta, Backhaus, Schuricht etc. Some choices are a little odd. Why are there no less than five CDs of Viennese waltzes, including a great deal of duplication in this New Year material? Admittedly we get performances by Knappertsbusch and Krips along with Boskovsky, but it does seem a rather lazily chosen selection.
A different conductor conducts, each Bruckner symphony, so we get Abbado, Stein, Bohm, Bohm again, Maazel, Stein, Solti, Solti, and Mehta. Again, the Brahms symphonies have Mehta, Schuricht, Bohm and Kertesz. The latter's first stereo recording of the New World Symphony is partnered by the fine Kondrashin version, and we also get Schiff in the Piano Concerto ( Not much of a favourite of mine)
I could enumerate many more interesting choices, but there is one serious disappointment, and that's the standard of mastering.I've made comparisons between discs in this box, and their earlier appearances on CD on labels like The Decca Sound, and in every case that I've checked so far the sound in the new edition is inferior. Just a few examples. The Curzon / Knappertsbusch Emperor sounds very lumpy and congested in the new edition, on the earlier release there's much more space and better piano clarity. It is rather odd, because the two Mozart concertos with Szell are fine.Similar problems afflict the famous Karan Planets. As for his Sleeping Beauty selection, there's really no comparison, the big climax and tam tam smash in the Adagio sound really coarse, as does Jupiter from the Planets.
Just one final oddity. Mehta conducts Gottfried von Einem's Philadelphia Symphony. I was curious about this one. The stereo positioning is very clear, but the whole performance has an intense piercing sound quality coupled with exaggerated dynamics. I can't help wondering whether this was an early Dolby recording and the transfer engineer has not set the de-dolby before mastering the disc.
This box contains some fascinating performances that haven't been around for quite a while, and it's very welcome, I just wish that the technical care matched the quality of the packaging.
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