Over the years I've bought quite a few issues on the Chandos label, both on LP and CD. There's no need to say how enterprising they have always been, but I had a big disappointment recently. This was a programme of music by Falla, with the BBC PO conducted by Juanjo Mena.
To put it kindly, these sound like very uncommitted performances, particularly in the Three Cornered Hat, which can't compete with the old Ansermet or de Burgos versions. Admittedly, Bavouzet is good in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, but it's still oddly inconsequential.
My main gripe is the sound quality. It's certainly big and beefy in the Chandos manner and reasonably detailed, but with little of the clarity we used to hear on this label's older issues, the Gibson Sibelius for example, although perhaps I go back a bit too far. I'm not suggesting that Falla's music should be on a chamber orchestra scale, but surely it should have impact and sparkle. These over inflated recordings, heavily mixed down, rarely give any sense of location, and the stereo in this case is surprisingly narrow in spread. Has anybody else sampled this recording? Back to Ansermet for me in Tricorne, and probably Rubinstein or Soriano in Nights.
To put it kindly, these sound like very uncommitted performances, particularly in the Three Cornered Hat, which can't compete with the old Ansermet or de Burgos versions. Admittedly, Bavouzet is good in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, but it's still oddly inconsequential.
My main gripe is the sound quality. It's certainly big and beefy in the Chandos manner and reasonably detailed, but with little of the clarity we used to hear on this label's older issues, the Gibson Sibelius for example, although perhaps I go back a bit too far. I'm not suggesting that Falla's music should be on a chamber orchestra scale, but surely it should have impact and sparkle. These over inflated recordings, heavily mixed down, rarely give any sense of location, and the stereo in this case is surprisingly narrow in spread. Has anybody else sampled this recording? Back to Ansermet for me in Tricorne, and probably Rubinstein or Soriano in Nights.
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