This SACD sounded exceptional on PMG SACD transport and PMG512:
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next will be:
Always puzzle by this one: Ambient, new age or Classical music?
Any on of my best album!
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A 1977 2-LP box from Philips of the great Claudio Arrau playing Liszt Etudes. An original blue-label Dutch pressing, it’s an outstanding piano recording. For some reason I kept the shrink wrap when I got it, and folded it up and put it in the box. The price was $17.38. 
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A Swedish album of obscure choral music might seem an odd thing to have in my collection, but there’s a reason. Back when I first got into serious hi-fi, I stumbled on the incredible Cantate Domino LP in a long-forgotten shop. It made such an impression that I scoured every store I could for anything else on the same label, Proprius. Unsuccessfully, as it turned out. But at that time I was dating a young woman from Sweden who was attending nursing school at Illinois Wesleyan University, and when she told me she was going home for Christmas break, I asked her to look for anything on Proprius in any record shop she ran across. This one, Laudate!, was the only one she found, and she brought it back for me. It sounds every bit as good as Cantate Domino, and while I can’t understand anything they’re singing, I love to listen to it. And no, the relationship didn’t last, but the record has, and maybe that’s all for the best. 
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Sticking with the same label but this is a hybrid SACD not an LP. Playing a rip of the CD layer on my PC which I’m sure falls very far short but…nevertheless.
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Believe it or not, I have 4 copies of this - my original LP, a second LP because the first was suffering from decades of use, the initial CD transfer, and then the SACD you’re playing.
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I have to dig through my stuff and try to find the disc. I’m sure I’m missing some of the recording just listening to the CD layer.
I’m working my way through my classical “audiophile” LPs as I clean them and get them into new outer sleeves. Some, like this one, I haven’t listened to in years. This one was a favorite demo disc back in the day - a 1978 Telarc Soundstream album of wind ensemble performances of Holst, Handel and Bach. It even came with a warning blurb about high-amplitude grooves that could damage the system of unwary owners. And it is pretty dynamic, with some major bass drum strikes. Very fun to revisit.
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Next up in this project is a 1954 recording of Franck’s Symphony in D minor, by Guido Cantelli and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, released (or re-released) on RCA in 1978. Not the equal of their Living Stereo records, or of Mercury’s Living Presence line, but it still sounds pretty good for a recording that’s now 71 or 72 years old. By the way, the dust/static arm is a temporary setup to see if it’s effective in reducing static discharge pops from low humidity.
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If I recall correctly, it was a member of our community here that recommended this album to me, though I don’t remember who it was. Whomever, I’m glad they did. It’s a remarkably nice choral recording. A 1986 release on the Collegium label of English choral songs performed by the Cambridge Singers under none other than John Rutter.
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Craig, that is, indeed, a very nice album of choral music. Beautifully performed and well recorded. Thanks for bringing back some fond memories of it.
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This restoration continues to surprise and delight me. The music is so well played, and the recording itself (by Bob Katz) is so utterly natural and unpretentious. Like two musicians in the room with me. John Haley has done an amazing job restoring this album.
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Continuing to work my way alphabetically backwards through the “audiophile” section of my classical records, next up is another EMI from the old TAS Superdisc list, 1977’s Elgar “Coronation Ode.” Really gorgeous sound. I don’t know why I only pull it out every 20 years or so.
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Delving into the avant-garde here with George Crumb on a phenomenal sounding 1974 Nonesuch album, Makrokosmos, Volume I, billed as twelve fantasy pieces after the Zodiac, performed by David Burge on prepared and amplified piano. Not one I play often, as the music is something akin to an art installation. Doesn’t exactly leave you humming any melodies.
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