Did you name your dog Jake? Rees maybe?
That’s it, you’re spot-on!
This recording has been in the catalog since it’s release in 1959 and has consistently rated as one of the top interpretations of the Violin Concerto, deservedly. Oistrakh’s performance is at the top tier and Ormandy’s touch with Sibelius’ other orchestral works are legendary. The performances are at the top level of any performances you might consider of these works.
For some reason, I am finding these transfers from tape to be far superior to any of the LPs I’ve had in my collection over the years. This album is illustrative of the excellence Bob Witrak is achieving. The sound is open, transparent, rich, thoroughly analog in all the best sense of why I’ve so much enjoyed high quality analog recordings over the years.
I have loved the István Kertész performances of Dvorak’s orchestral works since I first heard them in the late 1960s on London Records. Recorded by the legendary Decca recording engineer Kenneth Wilkinson, often in the superb Kingsway Hall, the sonics of these recordings were simply beyond compare. They still hold up supremely well in comparison to the best modern orchestral recordings of today. Let’s simply say that, for me, Kenneth Wilkinson’s work is the standard by which I compare any other orchestral recording efforts. Sourced from a 2-track 15-ips tape.
