If you wish us to send a CD to an address other than your own please e-mail us with the full address details of the recipient, stating the CD order reference.
Pristine Classical e-Newsletter - Click here to subscribe
Pristine News: Friday 28th August, 2009
In this week's newsletter:
VERDI: Otello - The legendary 1947 Toscanini recording in a complete sonic resurrection
Five of the Best - A round of of some of history's finest conductors at Pristine Classical
PADA Exclusives - Joseph Lhevinne's beautiful 1906 Welte-Mignon piano rolls
Audiophile Audition Review - Gary Lemco on a 'happy ressurection' of Leo Blech's Tchaikovsky
Editorial - XBMC Media Center - is this the answer to my music-replay prayers? Quite possibly...
After last week's extended whinge about the lack of support from Apple and Microsoft for FLAC lossless audio files, and the difficulties this poses for any small company like ours which wishes to offer the highest quality audio downloads, this week has seen something of an epiphany for me, in the guise of a piece of free software called XBMC Media Center (or if we're being cool and lower-case as the authors appear to prefer, "xbmc").
XBMC does just about everything I've been looking for in a media player. First of all, it plays everything I've thrown at it. It'll happily switch between our 16-bit and 24-bit FLACs. It doesn't flinch if you throw one of our long MP3 files at it - and as long as the associated cue file is in the same folder it'll give you a list of tracks and durations to choose from, and play straight through without any gaps. (It has a pretty good go at 'joining' regular MP3 tracks as well, just as iTunes does, with a small cross-fade covering the inevitable gaps.)
But - and I never thought I'd write this - it is better by design, not just better than Microsoft's Windows Media Player, or the likes of WinAmp, Foobar2000 and all those other Windows players I've wrestled with. It looks, plays and works neater than iTunes from those design gurus at Apple. OK, so iTunes is also a shop front, an iPod interface and so on, and therefore requires extra clutter. But if you want the perfect replay interface, iTunes is not it - not when you've got XBMC installed.
I don't know if you have many video files on your hard drive, but if you do, XMBC will almost certainly play them as well. I have to admit that, whilst waiting for a file to upload early this morning, I found myself "accidentally" watching a complete episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus on my 26-inch widescreen monitor, thanks to XBMC (the one with a "Mr. Hilter" running for the Minehead by-election and the Upper Class Twit of the Year...). I've also got our digital photo collection registered with it, and looking lovely in the slideshow feature. The music or video can even carry on playing while you check the weather (current conditions: 25C, mostly cloudy - should be nice and sunny by Sunday...)
Quite bizarrely, it would appear that this XBMC software wasn't originally conceived as a piece of Windows software, or Mac software, or Linux software - though you can download it free for all of these platforms. No, I think the "XB" in the name refers to Microsoft's X-Box games console, on which it also runs! But frankly, I don't care what it was written for - and perhaps its origins have been the inspiration which have kept it feeling and looking not like just another computer program, but like the interface for a whole new, cool and rather excellent piece of high-tech brilliance.
I've written more about XBMC on our website here. I recommend you give it a whirl, on your Mac, your Windows PC, your Linux box, and (if you know what you're doing, because I certainly don't!) on your X-Box. If you have a laptop computer and a nice little USB external sound card like this one (or better), I'd say you're going to be pretty much in audio heaven. Better still, you could also invest in an ASRock ION 330 computer, hook it up to your TV using its HDMI output, and run your whole multimedia audio and video set-up using XBMC as the controller. Just an idea.
The possibilities are endless. Right now I have some rather wonderful 24-bit Verdi to enjoy...
Andrew Rose, Pristine Audio
Also of interest today:
Archive Classics - excellent weekly online radio programme dedicated to historic recordings:
Archive Classics tx 28/08/2009
This month, Archive Classics turns the spotlight on to Brahms’s concertos, beginning with his monumental First Piano Concerto (first movement only on free podcast), written in his early 20s, but already showing the sure touch of a master. Stephen Johnson has chosen a 1954 recording by the American pianist Leon Fleisher, a child prodigy who studied with Artur Schnabel and made a series of acclaimed recordings in the 1950s before losing the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia. In this recording, the 26-year-old Fleisher is partnered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Monteux, who called him `the pianistic find of the century’.
A rare early recording of another extraordinary child prodigy opens this week’s podcast. Ilona Eibenschutz (1872-1967), a Hungarian Jewish pianist from Budapest, played in a concert with Franz Liszt when she was only 5, studied with Clara Schumann, and met Brahms in 1886. She knew him well until his death eleven years later, and in the summer of 1893 she was the first person to hear Brahms play his latest sets of piano pieces, Op.118 and 119. In 1903 she herself recorded the Ballade in G minor, Op.118 No.3.
The great British contralto Kathleen Ferrier made only two recordings with Sir John Barbirolli and the Halle Orchestra, and this week, Archive Classics offers `Der Einsame in Herbst’ from their 1952 recording of Mahler’s `Das Lied von der Erde’, made only a year before Ferrier’s untimely death.
Another recording from the 1950s rounds off this week’s podcast – the Quintetto Chigiano’s world premiere recording of Boccherini’s charming Piano Quintet in D minor, Op.57 No.4.
Bonus tracks for subscribers only
• The complete Brahms concerto
• Paganini’s Sonata for violin and piano No.12 in E minor, arranged and played by the Czech violinist Vasa Prihoda, with pianist Charles Cerne
The NBC Symphony Orchestra and Choruses
conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Broadcast 1: 6th December, 1947 (Acts 1 & 2)
Broadcast 2: 13th December, 1947 (Acts 3 & 4)
Studio 8H, NBC Radio City, New York
XR remastering from various sources by Andrew Rose, August 2009
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Arturo Toscanini
Possibly the best recording of Otello ever made - now in stunning XR sound
VERDI - Otello Ramón Vinay (Otello)
Herva Nelli (Desdemona)
Giuseppe Valdengo (Iago)
Virginio Assandri (Cassio)
Leslie Chabay (Roderigo)
Nicola Moscano (Lodovico)
Arthur Newman (Montàno)
Nan Merriman (Emilia) The NBC Symphony Orchestra and Choruses
conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Toscanini's 1947 Otello is regarded by many commentators as the greatest recording of what is possibly Verdi's greatest operatic work.
Toscaini's remarkable position of having played in the work's première in 1887 before going on to have a triumphant career as a conductor, during which time he spent considerable time at La Scala in Milan, gave him perhaps a unique perspective on the work.
Of all the NBC broadcast recordings of Verdi operas, it was perhapsOtello in which all the various pieces fitted best together - singers, choruses and orchestra are absolutely first rate throughout, and the performance itself is superlative.
The only question that has remained throughout previous reissues has been that of sound quality - the recording was made at the very end of the pre-tape era. We believe that this XR-remastered issue can finally put that question to rest - an essential release!
This recording, taken from two specially-lengthened broadcasts on 6th and 13th December, 1947, is widely regarded as perhaps the greatest ever made of Verdi's masterpiece, Otello. As NBC announcer Ben Grauer notes in his introduction to the first broadcast, it has a special link to Toscanini, who as a young cellist had played in the world première of the piece, under Verdi's baton, in La Scala, Milan on 5th February, 1887, some 60 years earlier.
Verdi is regarded by many as especially important to Toscanini, and this is among his greatest recordings - Mortimer Frank writes: "Of all the composers in Toscanini's repertory, Verdi was probably closest to him... what NBC preserved... if not necessarily representative of his staged performances or of his best work, is often compelling. Given limitations such as occasionally weak casting, they are uneven. Bet when everything more or less fell into place, as in the completeOtello, a performance of towering merit resulted."
Meanwhile we see in the notes on this work at Wikipedia: "most music-guide reviewers contend that a recording made of a 1947 radio broadcast of the opera, conducted with thrilling verve and precision by Arturo Toscanini and featuring such solid singers as Herva Nelli, Ramón Vinay and Giuseppe Valdengo, is musically (if not in terms of sound quality) the best of these versions".
For the restoration and remastering engineer tackling this recording today it is the phrase in paratheses above which is in sore need of justified removal. One discography of Toscanini lists sux separate releases of this recording, and I'm reasonably confident that there are actually more than this. Yet when I visited ardent Toscanini fan and collector Christophe Pizzutti earlier this year to take temporary charge of a large number of rare recordings for transfer and restoration, it was this recording he repeatedly pressed me to work upon, convinced that my XR remastering technique could finally reveal the full sonic magnificence of this immortal performance.
And so, with sources provided both by Christophe and by other collectors, I've endeavoured to assemble the very best quality material from which to assemble what I hope can be seen as a definitive recording of the two broadcasts (note that some recordings switch between live and rehearsal material, others include sections of severly reduced fidelity, none has had the benefit of XR re-equalisation and the latest remastering techniques associated with it).
The recording was made in the very end of the pre-tape era, and would have been preserved over a number of acetate discs. Fortunately these have been remarkably well-preserved in various incarnations, and the results of careful selections of the best possible sources and the magic of both XR remastering and Ambient Stereo processing (direct mono is of course also available) makes a huge impact on the final overall sound quality of the recording. This is one of Toscanini's greatest masterpieces, and it's never sounded better.
Available as 320kbps MP3, 16-bit FLAC, 24-bit FLAC, Ambient Stereo FLAC, CD
or listen on demand with Pristine Audio Direct Access (PADA)
TOP CONDUCTORS: Five of the Best from Pristine Classical
BEETHOVEN: Symphonies 3, 7 (Kleiber, 1950)
"...Decca’s transfer sounds quite well, the whiskery strings not too much in evidence. However, next to the Pristine Classical issue, produced from a dub from LP, the Decca produced from the master tape has a scrawny sound. Pristine’s restoration gets the orchestra sounding far more like it does in the Concertgebouw and complete with its unmistakeable acoustic. Astonishing!..."
- Peter Joelson, Audiophile Audition
BEETHOVEN: Symphony 3 (Weingartner, '36) "I started by listening to Felix Weingartner's 1936 recording of Beethoven's Eroica... the results are very impressive. This was from the first complete Beethoven symphony cycle ever recorded — and by a conductor who had known Brahms... Listening to the newly restored recording is to be drawn back into a different age with very little in the way... it has depth and a vividness that allows you to appreciate the wonderful attention to the work's pacing and, particularly, shading that Weingartner brings." - James Jolly, Gramophone
BRAHMS: Symphony 2 (Walter, 1951)
"A warmhearted live account from 1951 by the New York Philharmonic under Bruno Walter, similar in all essentials to their Columbia commercial recording from the same period, with similar tempi but with a degree of spontaneity and a yielding lyricism that pay highest dividends in the Adagio non troppo second movement. This is Walter’s Brahms at its most radiantly expressive, and Andrew Rose’s remastering is the best we’ve had so far."
- Rob Cowan, Gramophone
PROKOFIEV: Symphonies 5, 6 (Stokowski)
"Stokowski fans are well served by Pristine Audio who have coupled two fascinating and rarely heard Prokofiev symphony recordings, a characterful, emphatically stated 1958 Fifth with the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra (the Scherzo a highly eventful box of tricks) and a very early New York broadcast recording (1949) of the Sixth where the first movement's tragic centre is taken at an unusually fast pace though the works visceral impact still registers..." Rob Cowan, Gramophone
STRAUSS: Ein Heldenleben (Mengelberg '41)
"...the gain is substantial... Rose has pushed the old tape past the border at which an artifact becomes a living document. Hooked on the sensation, I spent days browsing Pristine’s archives, relishing the newly robust sound of such classic recordings as Bruno Walter’s 1952 'Das Lied von der Erde,' with Kathleen Ferrier; Willem Mengelberg’s 1939 version of Mahler’s Fourth, probably as close as we can get to Mahler himself conducting; and Mengelberg’s swaggering 1941 take on Strauss’s 'Ein Heldenleben'..." - Alex Ross, The New Yorker
Available as 320kbps MP3, 16-bit FLAC, 24-bit FLAC, Ambient Stereo FLAC, CD
or listen on demand with Pristine Audio Direct Access (PADA)
New MP3 transfers at PADA Exclusives
by Dr. John Duffy
in Ambient Stereo
Joseph Lhevinne's beautiful 1906
piano rolls
Joseph Lhevinne (1874-1944)
Music by Chopin, Lilszt, Schubert, Beethoven et al
Joseph Lhevinne
Welte-Mignon Piano Rolls
Recorded 1906
Joseph Arkadievich Lhévinne was born into a family of musicians in Oryol and studied at the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow under Vasily Safonov. His public debut came at the age of 14 with Ludwig van Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in a performance conducted by his musical hero Anton Rubinstein. He graduated at the top of a class which included both Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, winning the Gold Medal for piano in 1892.
He left only a handful of acoustic recordings which are truly breathtaking examples of perfect technique and musical elegance. The discs of Chopin Etudes Op. 25. Nos. 6 and 11 and Schulz-Evler's arrangement of Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltzare legendary among pianists and connoisseurs. His piano roll of Schumann's Papillons, Op. 2, is considered one of the definitive performances of that work.
In the words of Harold C. Schonberg: "His tone was like the morning stars singing together, his technique was flawless even if measured against the fingers of Hofmann and Rachmaninoff, and his musicianship was sensitive." Lhévinne made a number of piano rolls in the 1920s for Ampico, a collection of which were superbly recorded and released on the Argo label in 1966.
Lhévinne also recorded three times for the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano.
Dr. John Duffy's excellent new transfer of these wonderful recordings is now available in Ambient Stereo for PADA subscribers.
Over 400 PADA Exclusives recordings are available for high-quality streamed listening and free 224kbps MP3 download to all subscribers.
Remastered by
Dr John Duffy In Ambient Stereo
Download or stream this recording and many others from only One Euro a week!
Hundreds of historic recordings are available for listening and free MP3 download
to subscribers to PADA Exclusives, our €1/week streamed audio service.
Other subscription offers give you full access to our entire online catalogue
Recent review at Audiophile Audition
Obert-Thorn happily resurrects the 1928-1930 Tchaikovsky inscriptions this fastidious conductor made for Electrola.
Published on August 25, 2009
Blech conducts TCHAIKOVSKY = Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64; Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48: Valse and Tema Russo; Capriccio Italien, Op. 45 (edited) - Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Leo Blech
Producer and recording engineer Mark Obert-Thorn has delved in the archives of Leo Blech (1871-1958) and eschewed the usual Wagner inscription or one of the Fritz Kreisler concerto projects Blech led in Berlin prior to Kreisler’s later EMI sojourns. Instead, Obert-Thorn happily resurrects the 1928-1930 Tchaikovsky inscriptions this fastidious conductor made for Electrola; but I say “fastidious” in spite of the sometimes severe cuts that plagued Tchaikovsky shellacs in order to suit the time limits of the 78 rpm medium.
From the opening “turn not unto sorrow” motif derived from Glinka, Blech delivers a thoughtful, resonant declaration of Fate in the Fifth Symphony (October 1930), moving attacca to the Allegro con anima where others might pause a moment. A grand procession ensues, even with a diminuendo or two thrown in so as to increase the drama. The tempo remains brisk but not without epic pathos, the BSOO string exquisitely poised between arco and plucked passages. While Blech applies tempo rubato, it is never so exaggerated as we find in Mengelberg, so the basic, steady pulse reaches an inexorable, logical conclusion. The large waltz tune moves in linear, driven fashion, picking up accents and resonance as it mounts to typical Tchaikovsky trumpet fanfare. The working-out emphasizes Tchaikovsky’s devotion to sonata-form, the pace at the recap decidedly fiery, even glib. The last chords rumble with grim resolve...
New MP3 transfers at PADA Exclusives
by Dr. John Duffy
in Ambient Stereo
Leonard Shure plays Schubert and Schumann, 1958
Leonard Shure (1910-1995)
Schubert
Wanderer Fantasy
Schumann
Fantasy in C, Op 17
Leonard Shure, Piano
Recorded 1958
Issued as Epic LC3508
Leonard Shure, internationally acclaimed concert pianist and pedagogue, held faculty and chairman positions at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Cleveland Music School Settlement in the 1940s and early 1950s. Under the baton of George Szell, he was a frequent soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Upon returning from his studies with Artur Schnabel in Berlin in 1933, began his professional teaching career at the Longy School and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and his adult professional performing career (his first childhood performances began at age four) as a soloist with Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Shure was also the first pianist to perform at Tanglewood, the summer home for the BSO. Following his tenure in Cleveland, Leonard Shure taught at the Mannes College of Music in New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Boston University, and, in 1976, finally back to the New England Conservatory of Music. It was from there that he retired in 1990 following a sold out recital celebrating his 80th birthday.
Dr. John Duffy's excellent new transfer of these recordings is now available in Ambient Stereo for PADA subscribers.
Over 400 PADA Exclusives recordings are available for high-quality streamed listening and free 224kbps MP3 download to all subscribers.
Remastered by
Dr John Duffy In Ambient Stereo
Download or stream this recording and many others from only One Euro a week!
Hundreds of historic recordings are available for listening and free MP3 download
to subscribers to PADA Exclusives, our €1/week streamed audio service.
Other subscription offers give you full access to our entire online catalogue
New review in Fanfare Magazine
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 27.1 Symphony No. 292 Arturo Toscanini, cond; Rudolf Serkin (pn); New York P-SO;1 NBC SO2
PRISTINE 164, mono (47:34) Broadcast: New York 2/23/1936;1 9/3/1944.2
Available at www.pristineclassical.com
Neither of these performances is new to CD, the Symphony having been issued in a now probably scarce Grammophono disc, the concerto in a two-CD Guild set (sold only outside the U.S.) that preserved the entire concert of February, 23, 1936, from which this Serkin performance was drawn. It marked his debut in the U.S. as soloist with symphony orchestra and also featured him in the Beethoven G-Major Concerto. This transfer of the Mozart derives from the same air-check used by Guild, and thus is missing part of the first movement—a loss that begins shortly before the tutti that precedes the cadenza and extends into part of the cadenza itself. The sound of this transfer, in its presence and impact, is slightly superior to Guild’s. But, though thoroughly listenable, it remains markedly inferior to the studio norm for the period. That said, the performance should prove fascinating for anyone interested in the artists, especially Toscanini. It is certainly unlike the conductor’s 1943 NBC performance of the work with Horszowski (once available from Naxos). Sometimes that later one even approaches glibness. By contrast, this 1936 collaboration with Serkin boasts greater breadth and flexibility from both conductor and soloist. But, unlike the 1943 performance, it does not contain an addition of seven measures in the opening tutti that Toscanini inferred to be missing in what was then the standard (but corrupt) edition. Ultimately, Serkin, who gained access to Mozart’s manuscript, confirmed what had been only a suspicion on Toscanini’s part. Today, these seven measures have become standard. Clearly, several limitations, sonic and textual, limit the appeal of this release. Nevertheless, it is a significant document of a memorable collaboration in a work that was Toscanini’s favorite Mozart concerto.
The Symphony No. 29 is another matter. In his notes for this release, producer Andrew Rose cites my Arturo Toscanini: the NBC Years, where I noted that the performance is a “revelation for its time” when compared to the recorded accounts of the work made by Koussevitzky and Beecham. This is certainly true in terms of its lean sonority and freedom from overly broad tempos. But on hearing it again, it also sounds under rehearsed and graceless. It is certainly interesting as Toscanini’s only surviving account of the work (I suspect it may be his only performance of it), but it falls short in terms of projecting the music’s elegance, buoyancy, and charm. The sound, if certainly superior to that of the Concerto, is rather shrill and raucous. Reservations aside, for those who want a fascinating walk into history, this is a welcome release. A few of the CBS broadcast announcements frame the concerto.
Mortimer H. Frank This article originally appeared in Issue 33:1 (Sept/Oct 2009) of Fanfare Magazine.
Subscribe to Fanfare Magazine for online access to thousands of archived reviews
ADVERTISEMENT
Pristine Classical - bringing you DRM-free historic classical FLAC and MP3 download music since 2005
FAQ
FLAC downloads perfectly match CD quality or higher.
Our MP3 files are encoded at at a constant rate of 320kbps for all issues since mid-August 2008, and using the LAME encoder at high variable bitrate settings for older issues.
Each recording is presented as a single, long MP3 which can be split using the CUE sheet at the bottom of the page, automatically adding track titles and other tag information.
Most modern CD writing programs such as Nero and Burrrn can write these files directly to CD with all track information added using MP3+CUE - see our tutorial
Alternatively a cue splitter program can automatically cut and name the MP3 into individual MP3 tracks
There are also media players which use the MP3+CUE system, allowing gapless playback of all long MP3 files - essential for opera and many other classical works
Save money when you buy several downloads together
Use the following discount codes in the shopping cart:
Buy 5 or more - save 10%: Code: 85187052
Buy 10 or more - save 20%: Code: 12W07104
How To Use: Once you've made your selections, copy the correct code into the space marked Discount or Coupon Code in your shopping cart, then click the Update Cart button to apply the discount before heading to the checkout.
N.B. These discounts apply to all our FLAC and MP3 downloads only. Discounts do not apply to CD purchases
Free postage worldwide on the highest quality discs available.
Our CDs are made to order on highest quality Taiyo Yuden Watershield CD-R discs, recorded directly from our master files
CDs are shipped worldwide by Air Mail from France.
All our CDs hold the same quality of audio - the Standard €10 CD comes in a slip case with no covers, the Premium and Ambient Stereo €14 CD comes in a jewel case with printed covers.
The prices shown include all packing and shipping costs anywhere in the world.
All payments are processed by PayPal, one of the world's biggest and most reliable global online payment services
You can pay by credit card directly with PayPal acting as a secure card payment processing facility. Your card details remain with PayPal and are not passed to us.
You can use a free PayPal account for quicker and easier secure payments: sign up.
We do not recommend using the e-check option for download purchases as there is always a delay of 3-4 working days between purchase and receipt of goods while the check clears
Payments are shown in Euros and will be converted to your local currency at the current exchange rate before payment is completed.
(Act 3: A terra!. . .si. . .nel livido, 224kbps ambient stereo)
