Exton Label

[mathias broucek]

This Japanese label has a reputation for high sound at high cost. Many of the recordings are live and with Japanese orchestras but the Czech Phil, Pittsburgh Symphony and Sydney SO also feature

Qobuz has much of the catalogue at normal (and sometimes low) prices, albeit only in 16 bit quality (curious for an audiophile label)

I've recently purchased a few, as follows.

Honeck / Pittsburgh - Tchaikovsky 5. Just stunning (like pretty much everything else from this partnership). Excellent sound. Buy this!!!!!

Asahina / Osaka PO - Bruckner 8 (Nagoy, in case Jayne is reading). I really liked this - especially the scherzo. It's brisk - Haas version fitting onto a single disc - and he's the sort of Bruckner conductor who pushes ahead rather than holds back at points of climax. The orchestra is pretty good although the Wagner tubas at the end of the slow movement are not in the BPO/VPO/BRSO/SKD class. Perhaps I'll get the Suntory Hall version too!

Inoue / Osaka PO - Shostakovich 7. I've only sampled this but the string playing at the difficult start to the slow movement is very good indeed. Finale is unusually slow but very powerful. Not quite up to Bernstein / Chicago but no one is, right? Good sound but hint of compression towards the end (it's live).

Kobayashi / Czech PO - Manfred Symphony. This got a good mention on Musicweb but when I tried it on headphones I couldn't cope with the conductor's grunting. I don't normally find this particularly troubling but it was a deep, inhuman growl which I assumed was a piece of machinery in the office! Will try later via speakers

Has anyone else experience with this label?

[Dave2002]

Has anyone else experience with this label?

Not yet.

The Tchaikovsky 5 doesn't look outrageously expensive if it's as good as you and other reviewers say - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky.../dp/B00501X6WS

[HighlandDougie]

I have several Exton recordings, bought both in Europe and Japan. Most - but not all - are in SACD format. They tend to be very much, "warts and all", in that there is very little editing and a lot of capturing of extraneous noises, notably conductorial grunting! I have one of their "One Point" Mahler releases - the 10th in Deryck Cooke's completion (they record two versions at the same sessions - multi-channel and "one point") with Eliahu Inbal and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra which I find I cannot listen to because of the conductor's 'vocalisations'. My most recent acquisition was Jonathan Nott conducting DSCH 10 with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, recorded in the acoustic splendour of the Suntory Hall. I visited Tower Records Shibuya shop in Tokyo last week and they had a fair selection of Exton releases so they clearly sell well, at least in Japan. In relation to Manfred Honeck/Pittsburgh SO recordings which, with the Ashkenazy Stockholm Sibelius cycle were my introduction to the label, I've found Exton's results to be rather superior to those of whichever company produces the tapes which then appear on Reference Recordings.

[PJPJ]

Kobayashi / Czech PO - Manfred Symphony. This got a good mention on Musicweb but when I tried it on headphones I couldn't cope with the conductor's grunting. I don't normally find this particularly troubling but it was a deep, inhuman growl which I assumed was a piece of machinery in the office! Will try later via speakers

Has anyone else experience with this label?

From what I've heard Kobayashi's grunts are captured in all of his Exton recordings.

I have on SACD an excellent Ashkenazy Respighi Church Windows et al, a good box of Rachmaninov with De Waart, and lastly an excellent Mahler 3 and Dvorak with Zdenek Macal and the Czech PO.

I got all these some while back when Exton had a UK distributor and prices were roughly the same as other full-price CDs.

[PJPJ]

PS There's a full listing of SACDs including the historic reissues here:

https://www.hraudio.net/search.php?format=0&keywords=exton&page=1

P

[mathias broucek]

My most recent acquisition was Jonathan Nott conducting DSCH 10 with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, recorded in the acoustic splendour of the Suntory Hall.

That's less than £3 on Qobuz. Worth a punt?

[HighlandDougie]

That's less than £3 on Qobuz. Worth a punt?

The question has made me listen to it again. And, having experienced live what I described as the acoustic splendour of the hall last Friday in Bruckner, I don't feel that the recording represents Exton's finest hour. It's a bit too closely miked - and there is the occasional addition to the score from the conductor, both vocally and physically - but it's a good performance, although not quite in the same league as Ančerl or Mravinsky. I've been listening to it as a 2-channel SACD so I'm not sure what Qobuz's 16 bit version would be like but, hey, at that price for a download ... I see that there is a Bruckner 8 at the same price which I'm about to buy to see if Exton has changed its approach to recording in the hall to capture a bit more of its resonance.

[mathias broucek]

The question has made me listen to it again. And, having experienced live what I described as the acoustic splendour of the hall last Friday in Bruckner, I don't feel that the recording represents Exton's finest hour. It's a bit too closely miked - and there is the occasional addition to the score from the conductor, both vocally and physically - but it's a good performance, although not quite in the same league as Ančerl or Mravinsky. I've been listening to it as a 2-channel SACD so I'm not sure what Qobuz's 16 bit version would be like but, hey, at that price for a download ... I see that there is a Bruckner 8 at the same price which I'm about to buy to see if Exton has changed its approach to recording in the hall to capture a bit more of its resonance.

Thanks! If you're not allergic to late period Celi, there's a fab MPO Bruckner 8 from Suntory Hall on Altus and/or Sony

[HighlandDougie]

Thanks! If you're not allergic to late period Celi, there's a fab MPO Bruckner 8 from Suntory Hall on Altus and/or Sony

The idea of Bruckner's 8th being stretched out over 100 minutes does not, alas, appeal, even conducted by Celibidache, genius as he was. Nott's 8th wouldn't appeal to those who like their AB to be verging on the cataleptic (Nowak, 1890, under 80 minutes). But I can report that the Exton engineers have moved back in the hall so that what I've been hearing sounds like what I heard last week. I like the performance very much to the extent that I will now seek out the SACD.