Your first five albums I’d heartily concur on. There are many other albums in Bob’s back catalog listing that hold high regard in my music library. The first three are great:
I have all three! And they are quite good transfers. I’m going to add that Jamal at the Alhambra. I used to own that record on vinyl - no idea what happened to it - probably mis-filed somewhere in a move. Thanks for your help - I’ll report back if something really stands out.
Hi Rushton. I bought the Boston Symphony Petrouchka - haven’t had a chance to listen yet - but I also bought Stravinsky’s Firebird with Ernest Ansermet leading L’Orchestre De La Suisse Romande. I find it to be an incredibly intimate recording and phenomenally realistic stereo, especially for 1955. Two things about my classical listening: it’s been going on since I was a child and for about 10 years of my life, I was a programmer and announcer in public radio doing classical and jazz programs. So I have a good deal of experience with the music and many recordings, but it has only been fairly recent that I’ve gotten fully into the audiophile game. So I’m learning many things about critical audio quality listening for all genres. I have set up my system and room to do the best job I can of recreating how mixing and mastering engineers set up their workspaces, in an attempt to get as close as possible to what they heard. With jazz, I find that the target most often is to emulate a small club and in some cases an even smaller space or sometimes a concert setting (as with a big band). With classical symphonic works, it’s pretty much shooting for a concert hall, chamber music a smaller hall. But this Stravinsky recording is the first time I felt like I was the conductor, and the orchestra was wide and close. And when I was in college majoring in music, I had a few opportunities to conduct (pretty badly), so I have some experience to draw on. I’m certain there are many recordings with this kind of focus, but this one really struck me.
Have you heard it yet?
Yes, this has long been a favorite of mine. And the HDTT transfer is the best sound quality I’ve heard of any of the issues.
Glad to hear you’re optimizing your audio system to extract from these recordings the best sound quality you can get!
Have you listened to this one? From 1956 and just superb in this Pure DSD256 transfer.
Yup, I have that one. In fact, back when I was in radio - from 1978 to 1990 - that recording was still being programmed on a regular basis. Here’s how far back that was: on the front of every album we slapped on a 3 x 5 shipping label where we’d write in the date it was last programmed. Didn’t do that for jazz or rock albums because who cares whether it was played the night before?
Hey Mr. R. I got a chance to play the Boston Symphony Petrouchka and it shares the same kind of “on the podium” presence I experienced with the Fire Bird recording. And then I went back and listened again to the Ars Nova recording of L’histoire Du Soldat and it is even better than I remembered. I have also made some recent additions to my system that have improved soundstage depth and I can hear it in that recording. The only problem I have with it is the trumpet player is a bit too “blatty”, or forward. But I studied trumpet for many years, so I have a bit more critical ear. Thanks for reminding me of that one.
More “spinning now” session posts translating into a set of reviews…
Yet again, Bob Witrak brings to us six new releases that further expand that marvelous library of great performances in some of the best sound quality in which these recordings can be found. All are classical recordings in this update…
Finally a new jazz release - Lambert, Hendricks and Ross The Hottest New Group In Jazz. I’ve never been a huge fan of LH&R, but I noted that this recording was made during the month I was born, so I guess I just needed to have it. It’s quite a good recording for what it is - incredible presence and perfect imaging of the vocal group. So if you are a LH&R fan, you should love it. For me, it’s just not quite my cup of tea.
This past week was time to compile some reviews of both recent HDTT releases of historical interest (Maazel’s 1964 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 ‘Little Russian’ ; the Van Cliburn-Fritz Reiner 1961 Brahms Concerto No. 2 ; and Harry Belafonte’s The Midnight Special ) and three Pure DSD256 releases that I listed in my Top-of-the-Pile list but had not written reviews:
