New Year’s Concert 2022 (CD review)

Music of Johann Strauss II, Josef Strauss, Eduard Strauss, and others. Daniel Barenboim, Vienna Philharmonic. Sony 19439962512 (2-disc set).

By John J. Puccio

You doubtless know that Vienna’s New Year’s Concerts have been going on since 1941 when the Vienna Philharmonic began its annual custom of offering them, and things haven’t changed much since then. EMI, RCA, DG, Decca, and now Sony are among the many companies that have recorded the VPO’s concerts over the stereo years, and in keeping with the orchestra’s tradition of having no permanent music director, they invite a different conductor to perform the New Year’s duties each year. The New Year’s conductors in recent times have included some of the biggest names in the business, including Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Willi Boskovsky, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, Georges Pretre, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Franz Welser-Most, Zubin Mehta, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Andris Nelsons, and in 2022 the orchestra invited Daniel Barenboim to return.

Maestro Barenboim (b. 1942) is both a noted pianist and a conductor. He has been the leader of such prestigious ensembles as the Chicago Symphony, the Orchestre de Paris, La Scala, and the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, and he is currently the music director of the Berlin State Opera and the Staatskapelle Berlin. He has been making music for quite a long time, and the recordings I’ve always admired most from him are the late Mozart symphonies and piano concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra on EMI. They have hardly been equalled, so we know what to expect from him.

Here’s the current set’s line-up of selections for 2022:

Disc One:
Josef Strauss: Phonix March
Johann Strauss II: Wings of the Phonix Waltz
Josef Strauss: Die Sinene Polka
Joseph Hellmesberger II: Little Advertiser Galop
Johann Strauss II: Morning Papers Waltz
Eduard Strauss: News in Brief Polka
Johann Strauss II: Overture to Die Fledermaus
Johann Strauss II: Champagne Polka
Carl Michael Ziehrer: Night Owls Waltz

Disc Two:
Johann Strauss II: Persian March
Johann Strauss II: A Thousand and One Nights Waltz
Eduard Strauss: Greeting to Prague Polka
Joseph Hellmesberger: Elves
Josef Strauss: Nymphs Polka
Josef Strauss: Harmony of the Spheres Waltz
Johann Strauss II: At the Hunt Polka
Johann Strauss II: The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz
Johann Strauss II: Radetzky-March

The last time I heard Barenboim conduct a New Year’s Concert was in 2014, and his conducting seemed to me back then lively, sensible, a little sentimental, and perfectly enjoyable. This time, maybe not quite as much. I sensed a small lack of spark to the music, a minor want of sparkle and excitement. Yet, as I say, minor deficiencies, with most of the program going well. Perhaps we should call it maturity. Most conductors as they age tend to slow down, if only a tad, and we often count these latter performances as “mature.” So be it.

Still, there is much lyrical grace to the Strauss waltzes. The familiar Morning Papers waltz, for instance, demonstrates a lovely cadence, an almost stately refinement often missing from the piece. Other, less familiar material, like the Wings of the Phonix are given a gravitas that elevates them to more important status. The galops and polkas that Barenboim intersperses with the waltzes add a note of exhilarating contrast to the proceedings, and most of the time we hear no noticeable slowdown of the conductor’s enthusiasm for the subject matter. Then, too, he handles Die Fledermaus overture with delicacy as well as passion.

The second disc opens with the Persian March, which carries an unexpected dignity with it in addition to the usual martial airs. And so it goes. The Harmony of the Spheres comes off well, too, with a sweetly paced, uncommonly relaxed lilt. Naturally, we couldn’t have a New Year’s Concert without the traditional closing: The Blue Danube waltz and the Radetzky-March. Barenboim’s Danube, it seemed to me, flowed a little lugubriously but maybe we can chalk it up to global warming. And the audience continues to have a good time clapping in time to Radetzky. So all continues right with the world, despite everything we do to upset it.

Producer Friedemann Engelbrecht and engineer Rene Moller and Wolfgang Schiefermair recorded the music live for Teldec Studio Berlin at the Goldener Saal des Wiener Musikvereins, Vienna, Austria on January 1, 2022. This time, it doesn’t sound as though the engineers recorded the orchestra quite as closely as usual. There is a little distance involved, and a good deal of hall ambience, resonance, reverberation. This, of course, enhances the experience of being at the concert live. After all, most people will want the album as a memento of the live event, audience noise and all, not as an audiophile demo record. In this regard, the sound is fine and serves its purpose. It’s certainly dynamic enough.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

From Holland with Love (CD review)

Waltzes I've
Saved for You. André Rieu, Johann Strauss Orchestra. Philips 314 522 933-2.

By John J. Puccio

Maybe I'm a sucker
for sentimentality, but just as I liked Ofra Harnoy's recording of
romantically-paced, vibrato-prone Dvorak (RCA) over twenty years ago and which
I listened to at about the same time, I enjoyed this disc of old favorites from
violinist André Rieu the more I listened to it. This is saying a lot, too,
considering that I’m not particularly fond of overrated superstar performers
with tens of millions of records to their credit.

Playing with a band
Rieu formed in 1987, the Johann Strauss Orchestra, and reminiscent of Willi
Boskovsky's old Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra, the conductor-violinist
directs vigorous, lusty, sometimes boisterous, always zesty, and ultimately
joyous performances of waltzes and polkas by the Strausses, Lehar, Gruber, and
others.

Andre Rieu

However, I wasn't
instantly won over. During the first few selections I feared Rieu was only
playing to the galleries, trying too hard to foist pop culture on the masses,
commercializing and vulgarizing old favorites. His way with Anton Karas’s Third
Man theme seemed to me especially romanticized, as did the opening
selection, a medley of Strauss and colleagues' tunes. But I soon came to
recognize Rieu's sincerity and joined in the spirit of the festivities.
Evidently, the Strausses themselves had a high time with their music in concert
and expected their listeners to do likewise. So, don't count on subtlety; Rieu
plays for fun and merriment and hardly with subtlety or refinement. 

Producer Ruud Jacobs
and engineer Ronald Prent recorded the music at Wijngrachttheater, Kerkrade,
and Philips Classics released it in 1994. The sound they obtained appropriately
fits the style of the music making. It's big and bold, meaning close, and
recorded in a fairly resonant venue, making the smallish, twenty-piece Johann
Strauss Orchestra (which has subsequently grown much larger) seem bigger than
it is. Interestingly, the program concludes with a fairly direct interpretation
of "Roses from the South," almost as though Rieu were saying,
"See, I can play it straight, too!" If you like traditional Viennese
waltzes but can also keep an open mind, you might enjoy this collection.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Viennafest (CD review)

Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Telarc CD-80547.



It had been a while since I last heard the late Erich Kunzel and his Cincinnati Pops doing a record for Telarc, so it was fun renewing an old friendship. Having remembered Kunzel's work with Telarc's Straussfest discs, I prepared myself for something a bit unusual in the way of waltzes and polkas, and that's exactly what Kunzel delivers. However, I didn't find it always in a good way.



In Viennafest we get a mixture of the traditional and the novel, all of it done up in reasonably good taste. The disc starts with an appropriately rousing curtain raiser, the "Radetzky March" by Strauss, Sr., and done in loud, boisterous, if somewhat mechanical fashion, followed by the overture from The Gypsy Baron. Then we have a polka, "The Huntsman," with a horse whinnying for effect.



Here are a few more selections, including one of the more controversial items on the program, the "Voices of Spring" waltz with a vocal part sung by soprano Tracy Dahl that you'll either love or hate, depending on what you're used to. A couple more novelty polkas come next, "At the Double" and Eduard Strauss's "At Full Steam," both featuring suitable sound effects. After those are Franz Lehar with the "Gold and Silver" waltzes and the "Siren of the Dance" waltzes from The Merry Widow.



Josef Lanner's "Court Ball" waltz is particularly nice, Robert Stolz's "Two Hearts in Three-Quarter Time" is delightful, and Strauss, Jr.'s overture to Die Fledermaus is as charming as ever. The proceedings come to a close with a fairly schmaltzy rendition of Rudolf Sieczynski's "Vienna, City of My Dreams," but what are you going to do: It is what it is.

Erich Kunzel

Although Erich Kunzel may have sold probably more albums than almost anyone, he was never among my favorite conductors, generally taking things a little too matter of factly for my taste. This is especially noticeable in the aforementioned "Radetsky March" and also in the Lehar numbers, even if he is certainly felicitous enough in "Voices of Spring." Still, I prefer Willi Boskovsky, Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, Andre Reiu, and others in Strauss material to Kunzel's more relatively straight-arrow, largely uninspiring approach.



Telarc recorded the album using Super Bit Mapping Direct Stream Digital at the Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio in February 2000. The resultant sound is very smooth, as we have come to expect from this company, the bass drum always at the fore, with decent stage imaging, and a wide dynamic range. Nevertheless, the sound also appears to me a little thin in the midrange while at the same time a bit shy on the sparkle I had expected, as though Telarc had recorded things a tad more distantly than normal for them.



Anyway, the collection will please most of Kunzel's fans, even though I'm not sure any of the old Strauss family themselves would have usually had so large an orchestra at their command. Whatever, the current Johann Strauss Orchestra under Andre Reiu with its considerably fewer players (about two dozen or so) produces a more lustrous and transparent sound, and for a big, full ensemble it's still hard to beat the Vienna or Berlin Philharmonics.



JJP



To listen to a few brief excerpts from this album, click below:

Overtures & Intermezzi (CD review)

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. EMI 7243 5 74764 2 3.



While many other classical record companies had cut back severely on their output or curtailed production altogether in the early 2000's, it was reassuring to see EMI maintaining a healthy monthly release schedule of new and reissued material. Of course, the company would finally turn over its catalogue to Warner Classics, but in this case, their reissued stuff was among the best there was. Now, Warner Classics have made this 2003 reissue available on their own label, although you can still get it new on the older EMI label if you look around for it.



Anyway, the album in question is all about Maestro Herbert von Karajan, who did most of his recording during the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties with DG but always keep his ties open with EMI, having signed a contract with them all the way back in the Forties. He continued working with EMI almost exclusively through the Fifties and sporadically thereafter. While the earliest overtures and intermezzi contained on this album derive from 1960 and 1976, most of it is from the early 80's.

Herbert von Karajan

The items include Johann Strauss's Gypsy Baron Overture, Massenet's "Meditation" from Thais, Cherubini's Anacreon Overture, Weber's Der Freischutz Overture, Schmidt's Notre Dame Intermezzo, Puccini's Suor Angelica and Manon Lescaut Intermezzi, Mascagni's L'amico Fritz Intermezzo, Humperdink's Hansel und Gretel Overture, and Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture.



As usual, Karajan played them with his somewhat Romantic, glamorous, grandiose touch, the thematic qualities of the music sometimes playing second fiddle to the sheer beauty of the sound. It's what Karajan did best and why he was one of the most-popular conductors of his time. With bits like Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the violin in Thais, the old magic returning in Hansel und Gretel, and the Berlin Philharmonic at their peak, the collection remains a surefire crowd-pleaser.



EMI's sound for Karajan and the BPO is less warm, less padded, and less congested than what we often heard from the same ensemble on DG. Instead, the EMI sound is slightly bright, fairly open, and reasonably transparent. Surprisingly, perhaps, I found the oldest recording on the disc sounding the best, the 1960 rendering of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture. To my ears it is the most realistically ambient, with its stereo spread the widest, its depth of image the most noticeable, and its resonant hall sonics the most clearly captured. And as with almost all newer remasterings, there is virtually no background noise to contend with and no appreciable loss of high end. In all, then, this is a pleasant collection.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click on the forward arrow:

The Karajan Collection: Philharmonia Promenade Concert (CD review)

Herbert von Karajan, Philharmonia Orchestra. EMI 7243 4 76900-2.



In 2005 the powers that be at EMI continued to find new and varied ways to repackage their older material, of which they had one of the biggest catalogues in the business (most of it now owned by Warner Classics). In the present album, we get a single disc from a multi-disc collection EMI put together called "The Karajan Collection." The boxed collection featured Karajan's work with both the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic, but this single disc, Promenade Concert, features just the Philharmonia.



The booklet note tells us that the Philharmonia Promenade Concert (1958-1960) comprises the last recordings Karajan made for EMI with the Philharmonia Orchestra before he left for the Berlin Philharmonic. It seems an odd way to go out, this most sober-minded maestro doing a collection of lightweight showpieces, but it's all in good fun, and Karajan genuinely seems to be having a jolly time letting his hair down, so to speak.

Herbert von Karajan

There are twelve works on the disc, all of them popular warhorses, and I'll mention only a few: Chabrier's España, Waldteufel's Skaters' Waltz, Suppe's Light Cavalry Overture, Weinberger's Schwanda the Bagpiper, Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld Overture, and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, plus bits by Berlioz, Leoncavallo, and the Strausses. Karajan gives his full attention to each and every piece, and each of them radiates a charm and a swagger that, quite frankly, I wouldn't have expected. Of course, one also has to expect Karajan's typically glamorous manner, with many a long-breathed note and even more swooping phrases. It's OK: It does the music more good than harm.



The sound appears typical of EMI in the Fifties, leaning rather to the bright, thin side, but with plenty of sparkle and definition. A comparison to another Karajan disc in the EMI series (of Wagner orchestral music) made some twenty years later with Berlin reveals the newer disc sounding fuller and weightier, but not necessarily any better, especially musically.



On a further note, Warner Classics have recently made the album available for download, in whole or in part. So there's another option to consider, given that the EMI disc may now be hard to find.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Waltzes by the Strauss Family (CD review)

Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony; Arthur Fiedler, Boston Pops Orchestra. HDTT HDCD406.



Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago, said of Sir Georg Solti, "Under his direction, the Chicago Symphony has achieved new heights, and is respected internationally as a world-class organization."  Any number of other people, including Solti himself, expressed that misleading sentiment, proving that people have short memories. Apparently, they had all forgotten that half a dozen years before Solti, the great Fritz Reiner conducted the Chicago Symphony (from 1953 to 1963), raising it to international prominence, and through his RCA Living Stereo recordings helping to pioneer the stereo age.



I mention this information because I always welcome any new remasterings of Reiner's work, especially when they are as good as this one from HDTT (High Definition Tape Masters).



It was with Richard Strauss that Austro-Hungarian born Fritz Reiner (1888-1963) made his name with some of the earliest (1954) stereo recordings of R. Strauss's work; however, Reiner was no slouch when it came to Johann Strauss and family, either, as demonstrated by this brief collection of waltzes by Johann II and Josef Strauss. As I said about Reiner's Johann Strauss music in an earlier review of JVC's remastering of the same material, I like the music, and I like the way Reiner plays it. Almost everything Reiner conducted came out fresher, more pointed, more secure, more clarified, and more refined than ever before. Sure, Willi Boskovsky, another of my favorites in the Strauss family, put a touch more bounce, more verve, into in Strauss waltzes, but Reiner added the element of purity. I like the selections here, too: three Strauss Jr. waltzes: "Morning Papers," "Emperor Waltz," and "On the Beautiful Blue Danube"; and Strauss Jr.'s brother Josef Strauss's waltz "Village Swallows."



For good measure, HDTT have coupled Reiner's J. Strauss recordings with Arthur Fiedler's Boston Pops accounts of Edward Strauss's "Doctrines," Josef Strauss's "Music of the Sphere," and Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Roses from the South." Fiedler, the longtime conductor of the Boston Pops, probably sold more albums in his lifetime than any single conductor in history, and we generally associate him with light music. Perhaps that's why he handles Edward, Josef, and Johann Strauss's music so handily. It may not have quite the same elegant charm of Reiner's Strauss, but it has plenty of pizzazz to compensate.

Fritz Reiner

RCA recorded the music in 1957, and HDTT transferred it from several RCA 2-track tapes. I alluded above that I had reviewed some time ago another remastered edition of the Reiner Strauss music, that one by JVC in their XRCD audiophile series. Naturally, I wondered how the HDTT product would compare to something costing quite a lot more, so I put them in two separate CD players and listened back and forth. Not fair, I hear someone say. JVC not only used a costlier process but took their music directly from the original RCA master tapes, whereas HDTT had only the commercial RCA tapes to work with. Never mind, comparisons are comparisons.



Now, here's the thing: As expected, the JVC product did sound a tad better than the HDTT. The JVC seemed a trifle clearer and cleaner to me, with a bit tauter, deeper bass. Keep in mind, however, that you pay anywhere from two to four times as much for the JVC disc, depending on the HDTT format you choose; and if you didn't have the two discs playing side by side, I doubt that even the most golden ears would know there was a difference at all.



Which means that the HDTT remastering sounds darned good. Like its more-costly JVC counterpart, the HDTT disc sounds smoother and better detailed than the standard RCA product and captures the natural warmth of the venue better, too, at least in the case of the Reiner. I did not have a comparison to make for the Fiedler recordings. However, I can assure you the Fiedler performances sound excellent as well. If anything, they appear even wider in stereo spread and a little more forward in frequency balance than the Reiner things.



Of the two orchestras and concert halls represented here in Chicago and Boston, I preferred the Chicago recordings for their slightly warmer, more realistic sound to the Boston recordings with their more hi-fi-oriented sonics. Nevertheless, preferring the one very slightly over the other takes nothing away from the Boston recordings or performances. Everything on the album is first-rate.



For further information on HDTT products, prices, discs, and downloads in a variety of formats, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Strauss, Johann II: 19 Waltzes (CD review)

Willi Boskovsky, the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna. Warner Classics 0094638152422 (2-disc set).



According to what I've read about Austrian violinist and conductor Willi Boskovsky (1909-1991), his orchestras didn't particularly like him as a music director. Nevertheless, from playing violin with the Vienna Philharmonic he went on to leading the orchestra in music largely of Johann Strauss in the Fifties, and audiences adored him, which is all that mattered. His Decca recordings from those early years are still among the yardsticks by which people judge Strauss music today. By the early Seventies, however, he was recording for EMI with the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna, and he re-recorded most of the major Strauss repertoire for them. Then, when digital entered the scene, he re-recorded them yet again. You might say he became a specialist in the field. What we have in this 2007 rerelease from Warner Classics of the original EMI set is a collection of nineteen of Strauss's most famous waltzes from the early digital age of the Eighties.



Interestingly, many of these digital recordings are more sprightly and open than his analogue recordings with the same orchestra had been a decade before. The digital sound is less warm and less full, true, but the sound is a bit more detailed and carries with it little obvious digital brightness or edginess. More important, the performances themselves are a fraction quicker and more spontaneous, a delight in every way, almost matching his Decca renditions of much earlier. Although, to be fair, I still think the Vienna recordings are richer and more elegant than any of Boskovsky's later productions.

Willi Boskovsky

Among the nineteen waltzes on these two Warner discs are practically everything you've ever heard of: "The Blue Danube," of course, "Roses from the South," "Vienna Blood," "Voices of Spring," "Artist's Life," "Tales from the Vienna Woods," "Emperor Waltz," "Morning Papers," "Accelerations," "Lagoon Waltz," "Du und Du," "Wine, Women and Song," "Danube Maiden," and a few you might not have heard of like "Literary Essay," "Leading Article," "Pamphlets," and "Flight of Fancy."



It's a terrific collection of waltzes, really, at an incredibly reasonable price. One minor concern, though. The booklet lists "Tales from the Vienna Woods" as being recorded with Rudi Knabl on zither, and the booklet article notes the piece "with its important part for the zither." But not here; there's not a zither in sight or sound. The original EMI booklet notes correctly list the work's recording date as 1982, but in that recording Boskovsky chose to bypass the zither and use a violin. At the time of putting together this collection, EMI must have been thinking of Boskovsky's 1985 recording, which I had on hand, where he reinstated the instrument with Mr. Knabl playing it. I can only guess that the mix-up was an oversight on EMI's part, a confusion not hard to understand given that Boskovsky recorded "Tales" at least four times in stereo: 1963, 1972, 1982, and 1985.



I prefer the zither, by the way, but other than that there is no reason not to enjoy the set fully.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Decca: Supreme Stereophonic Legacy (UltraHD review)

Various composers and artists. FIM UHD 088 (4-disc box set).



British Decca is one of the oldest, most-prestigious, and most-innovative record companies in the world, producing classical, popular, jazz, even country-Western recordings since the 1920's. To help celebrate Decca's accomplishments, the audiophile company FIM (First Impression Music) have put together this four-disc box set of Decca stereo recordings, remastered in FIM's 32-bit Ultra High Definition PureFlection processing. The recordings represent some of Decca's best work of the past fifty-odd years, and the remasterings reflect some of the best sound possible with today's compact-disc technology. Along with a sturdy clothbound box, a hardbound book of Decca history, and another hardbound book of production notes and disc sleeves, the set makes an attractive package for the music lover and audiophile alike. An expensive but attractive package.



FIM owner, president, and producer Winston Ma tells us in an introduction to the set that the Decca name goes back to 1914 when Barnett Samuel and Sons introduced a portable gramophone they called the Decca Dulcephone. Shortly afterwards, they renamed the company The Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd., and in 1929 sold it to Edward Lewis. It wasn't long afterward that Decca Records Ltd. became the second-largest record company in the world, calling itself at the time "The Supreme Record Company" (and, thus, the present set's "Supreme Stereophonic Legacy" title). Wilfred S. Samuel created the actual name "Decca" by combining the word "Mecca" with the initial "D" of their logo "Dulcet" (or their trademark "Dulcephone"). Samuel figured "Decca" would be a good brand name for the company because almost anybody could pronounce it in almost any language. Clearly, the idea worked and the name stuck. For a few decades in the mid twentieth century, a conflict with American Decca caused a minor problem, resulting in the parent British company calling their American product "London Records," but things have settled back to "Decca" worldwide for these past many years.



As I say, FIM selected the tracks from among some of Decca's best stereo releases. What's more, if you have already collected any of FIM's previous remasterings, you will recognize the selections from their previous work. This time, however, the FIM folks have reassembled them and rereleased them to their latest audio standards. Here's the track listing;



Volume One (UHD 089)

1. Glinka: Overture - Russlan and Ludmilla (Solti, LSO)

2. Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor - Movement 1 (Lupu, Previn, LSO)

3. Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor - Movements 2 and 3 (Lupu, Previn, LSO)

4. Granados: Intermezzo from Goyescas (Burgos, New Philharmonia)

5. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Act 1, Valse (Ansermet, O. Suisse Romande)

6. Bernstein Elmer: The Magnificent Seven (Stanley Black)

7. Strauss, Johann Jr.: Voices of Spring (Boskovsky, VPO)

8. Strauss, Johann Jr.: Perpetuum Mobile (Boskovsky, VPO)

9. Loewe: "I Could Have Danced All Night" (Edmundo Ros)

10. Di Capua: "O Sole Mio" (Pavarotti)



Volume Two (UHD 090)

1. Verdi: Aida - Gloria all Egitto (Carlo Franci)

2. Albeniz: Castilla (Burgos, New Philharmonia)

3. Albeniz: Austurias (Burgos, New Philharmonia)

4. Rimsky-Korsakoff: Capriccio Espagnol (Argenta, LSO)

5. Chabrier: Espana (Argenta, LSO)

6. Mussorgsky: Night on the Bare Mountain (Solti, LSO)

7. Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina - Prelude (Solti, LSO)

8. Bernstein, Leonard: On the Waterfront, Symphonic Suite (Stanley Black)

9. Rodgers: "I Whistle a Happy Tune" (Edmundo Ros)



Volume Three (UHD 091)

1. Strauss, Richard: Also Sprach Zarathustra - Prelude (Mehta, LAPO)

2. Falla: The Three Cornered Hat - Act 1 (Ansermet, O. Suisse Romande)

3. Falla: Ritual Fire Dance (Burgos, New Philharmonia)

4. Verdi: Nabucco - Act 1, Gli arredi festivi (Carlo Franci)

5. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Act 2 - Tempo di Valse (Ansermet, O. Suisse Romande)

6. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Act 2 - Andante non Troppo (Ansermet, O. Suisse Romande)

7. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Act 2 - Allegro Moderato (Ansermet, O. Suisse Romande)

8. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Act 3 - Danse Espagnole (Ansermet, O. Suisse Romande)

9. Herold/ Lanchbery: La Fille Mal Gardee - Introduction (Lanchbery, ROHO)

10. Herold/ Lanchbery: La Fille Mal Gardee - Pas-de-Deux (Lanchbery, ROHO)

11. Strauss, Johann, Jr. and Josef: Pizzicato Polka (Boskovsky, VPO)

12. Steiner: Gone with the Wind - Tara's Theme (Stanley Black)



Volume Four (UHD 092)

1. Bruch: Scottish Fantasia, Op. 46 - Movement 1 Oistrakh, Horenstein, LSO)

2. Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante - Movement 1 (Oistrakhs, Kondrashin, MPO)

3. Mozart: Divertimento L. 136 I. - Allegro (Marriner, ASMF)

4. Mozart: Divertimento L. 136 II. - Allegro (Marriner, ASMF)

5. Mozart: Divertimento L. 136 III. - Allegro (Marriner, ASMF)

6. Mozart: Serenata Notturna K.239 I. - Marcia (Marriner, ASMF)

7. Mozart: Serenata Notturna K.239 II. - Minuet (Marriner, ASMF)

8. Mozart: Serenata Notturna K.239 III. - Rondo (Marriner, ASMF)

9. Strauss, Johann Sr: Tivoli-Rutsch Waltz (Boskovsky, VPO)

10. Strauss, Johann Jr: Blue Danube (Boskovsky, VPO)

11. Rapee: Charmaine (Mantovani)



I suppose there is some rhyme or reason behind the grouping of the selections, but what that reasoning is, I could not discern. The pieces do not appear arranged by composer or conductor or even by composition or recording date. My guess is that the set's producers merely grouped the various items according to personal fancy. In any case, the music is so good and so well recorded and remastered, one need only sit back and enjoy it. Of course, it means not being able to hear too much of one thing, so except for the Mozart it's mainly bits and pieces and short works. But it makes picking out and playing back favorite items for relatively brief listening sessions quite easy. Or you might find a favorite disc among the four and replay it time and again. Who knows.

Sir Georg Solti

In my case, having reviewed this music before from FIM, it made picking favorites easy because of familiarity but hard because I really liked them all. Nevertheless, let me comment on just a few of the set's most outstanding tracks.



Sir Georg Solti's conducting could sometimes sound hard-driven, even frenetic, but when he was on, as he was here in selections from Glinka (Russlan and Ludmilla) and Mussorgsky (Night on the Bare Mountain) with the London Symphony Orchestra, he was electrifying.



For a while (too long a while), Decca experimented with a recording technique they called "Phase 4." It employed the use of about two hundred microphones per instrument and resulted in a sound that was strongly dynamic, ultra clear, flat, forward, compartmentalized, and anything but natural. However, no one could argue that it wasn't spectacular, and that's what we get in Stanley Black's rendition of Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Magnificent Seven, recorded with the London Festival Orchestra. The recording has a clarity and impact I guarantee will impress almost any listener.



Nobody did Johann Strauss Jr.'s music as well as Willi Boskovsky, especially in his recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic, as we hear on Voices of Spring and Perpetuum Mobile. The grandness of the orchestra matches the grandness of the music, and the musical lilt is nigh-well perfect.



And so it goes, with each selection a little gem. Ataulfo Argenta's way with Rimsky-Korsakoff's Capriccio Espagnol and Emmanuel Chabrier's Espana is a joy to behold; John Lanchbery does up Herold's La Fille Mal Gardee better than anyone before or since; and Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields are as polished and precise as ever in Mozart's Divertimento and Serenata Notturna, with sound that Decca (on their Argo label) never topped. It's all a pleasure to hear.



Along with the four discs come two hardbound books measuring about 7 1/4" square. The first one contains four paper sleeves for the discs, with each disc slipped into its own static-proof jacket. Then, there are 108 glossy pages of technical information on the composers, the compositions, the original Decca recording processes, and the FIM remasterings. The second book is 264 pages long and chronicles a history of the Decca organization, its major artists, its labels, its products, and just about anything else you'd ever want to know about the company. The books strike me as well written and lavishly illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs.



Insofar as concerns the sound of FIM's remasterings, it's obviously excellent. Although, as I've mentioned, FIM had remastered and released these selections before, they went back and replicated them over again using their newest 32-bit UltraHD and PureFlection processing formats. According producer Winston Ma, this technology yields the highest degree of fidelity possible from a standard Red Book CD, so you can play the discs back on a regular CD player rather than use some exotic equipment. (OK, I know what you're thinking: If you can afford a set as costly as this one, you probably already own an exotic audio system. But that's beside the point.)



Anyway, I sat down and compared the sound of these new remasterings with the sound of many of the equivalent FIM discs I had in my library. This was fun for a few minutes until I recognized that I was hearing the same differences with every recording. The sound of the new transfers is smoother than that of the older ones. Sure, there is tremendous fidelity in both old and new, but the newer discs take some of the edge off the often brighter sound of the older ones. Not that there is anything wrong with the older transfers; they are certainly better than the original Decca releases; it's just that the new FIM product is that much easier on the ears, detailed yet ultraclean, clear, dynamic, and effortless.



Naturally, which sound one prefers may depend upon one's playback equipment. If your stereo system favors the high end, you may prefer FIM's new UltraHD masterings without question. If your system is at all soft or subdued, you might actually prefer the very slightly more forward sound of the older FIM issues. Personally, I preferred the newer sound, but without the master tapes with which to make comparisons, I have no way of knowing which transfers are the more accurate. Let's just say that if you have deep enough pockets, this "Decca: Supreme Stereophonic Legacy" box won't disappoint.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

The Never-Ending Waltz (CD review)

Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Telarc CD-80668.

Every album seems to
need a gimmick these days. With Telarc’s The
Never-Ending Waltz the deal was to string together snippets of famous
waltzes into a continuous fifty-odd-minute stream. Erich Kunzel and the
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra play the music beautifully, of course, and, to be
snide for a second, if you have an elevator in your house, it will do wonders for
the ride.

As I sat listening,
I couldn’t help thinking of those old “101 Strings Play the Classics” records
of the 1950’s and 60’s, where they would give you about one or two minutes of
every famous classical piece you could think of. The possibilities are endless,
of course. With today’s writable CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-rays, MP3’s and all, people
could take their own favorite Beethoven symphony movements and create their own
new symphony. Let’s see, the first movement of the Sixth, the slow movement of the Fifth,
the Scherzo from the Seventh, and maybe a big finale with the
ending of the Ninth.

There is a method to
this collection of excerpts from Kunzel and the Pops, though: While they play
the music without interruption, they actually divide it into eight categories.
They devote the first nine minutes or so to the waltzes of Johann Strauss, Jr.;
then the next section, called “Vienna Waltzes,” includes music by Lanner,
Ivanovici, Lehar, etc.; followed by “Operetta Waltzes,” “Opera Waltzes,”
“Waldteufel Waltzes,” “Concert Waltzes,” “Ballet Waltzes,” and, finally,
“Tchaikovsky Waltzes.” So, Kunzel and his crew do cover the field. And, to be
fair, the album does make for wonderful background music. The Cincinnati Pops
play with a full, lush smoothness that is quite fetching, and Kunzel does have
the measure of the music.

If it’s only lovely
snippets of musical wallpaper you’re after, this album serves its purpose.
Besides, who can tell, maybe it will encourage fledgling classical fans to buy
complete sets of the material this album includes. Indeed, what the disc did
best for me was make me want to listen to the original tunes in their entirety.

Telarc released the
disc in 2006, and the sound is good, as we have come to expect from this
source, especially in its imaging and its sweet ambient bloom. Still, it seemed
just a touch softer to me, more slightly vague and muffled, than Telarc’s best
stuff. Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I did my listening, or maybe I had
my ears plugged up from a summer allergy. Who knows. Or maybe it was that the
music appeared to me more lightweight than usual from Kunzel, and it influenced
how I heard it. The album has no doubt sold a ton of copies in its time, and
for its kind, the disc more than adequately fulfills its goals.

To listen to several brief excerpts from this album, click
here:

JJP

The Strauss Family (CD review)

Willi Boskovsky, Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna. EMI 5 86019 2
(six-disc set).

I read somewhere
that the performers in his orchestras didn’t particularly like working with
conductor and violinist Willi Boskovsky, but he fashioned some of the most
beautiful recordings of the Strausses ever made. First playing the violin with
the Vienna Philharmonic, Boskovsky went on to lead and record the orchestra in
Strauss waltzes in the 1950’s and 60’s, and audiences adored him, which in the
end was all that mattered. His Decca recordings from those early years are
still the yardsticks by which we must measure all Strauss waltzes. By the early
1970’s he was recording for EMI with the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna,
and he re-recorded much of the major Strauss repertoire for them. Then, when
digital entered the scene in the 1980’s, he recorded them yet again!

What we have in this
six-disc EMI box set is a collection of some seventy-nine of the Strauss
family’s most famous waltzes recorded by Boskovsky with the Johann Strauss
Orchestra in the 70’s (analogue) and 80’s (digital).

Personally, I find
Boskovsky’s digital recordings slightly more sprightly and open than his analogue
recordings with the same orchestra a decade before. Fortunately, most the
recordings chosen for this collection are from the later digital group. The
digital sound is a little less warm and slightly less full than the analogue
sound, but it seems more detailed and carries with it no obvious digital
brightness or edginess, so sonic differences among the various pieces on the
six discs is practically nil. More important, all the performances are light
and spontaneous, a total delight in every way, and except that the Strauss
Orchestra appears to be much smaller than his old Vienna Philharmonic and miked
a bit closer, they at least match the Decca renderings in spirit.

Among the waltzes
are practically everything you’ve ever heard of: “The Blue Danube,” of course,
“Roses from the South,” “Vienna Blood,” “Voices of Spring,” “Artist’s Life,”
“Tales from the Vienna Woods,” “Emperor Waltz,” “Morning Papers,”
“Accelerations,” “Lagoon Waltz,” “Du und Du,” “Wine, Women and Song,” “Danube
Maiden,” and a few you might not have heard of like “Leading Article,” “Kiss
Waltz,” “Watercolours,” and “Flight of Fancy.”

More important, EMI
organized the music by Strauss family member, from oldest to youngest. The
first disc includes several things by Strauss the elder; then there are works
by the “Waltz King,” Strauss II, grouped as “Favorite Waltzes”; more “Waltzes”
on discs two and three; and “Polkas” and “Overtures” on discs three, four, and
five. Then on the second half of disc five and the first half of disc six, we have
“Polkas” by brother Josef Strauss. And on the second half of disc six there are
“Polkas” by brother Eduard Strauss. 

It’s a terrific
collection of waltzes, polkas, overtures, and galops even if this box set,
which EMI originally issued in 2004, may be a little hard to find anymore. Oh,
and the folks at EMI have fixed one minor concern I had with a another
collection of Strauss waltzes with Boskovsky. In a previous EMI set, they took
“Tales from the Vienna Woods” from a session in which Boskovsky substituted a
violin for the more popular zither. This time, they provided his later
recording with Rudi Knabl on zither, and all is right with the world.

For fans of Strauss
or Boskovsky, this is an indispensable set.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Strauss: Ein Straussfest (UltraHD review)

Music of Johann
Strauss Sr., Johann Strauss Jr., Eduard Strauss, and Josef Strauss. Erich
Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. LIM UHD 064.

Maestro Erich Kunzel may have made more recordings than
almost any conductor in history, but when it came to the music of the Strauss
family, he didn’t quite project the delight of a Willi Boskovsky, the glamor of
a Herbert von Karajan, the energy of an Antal Dorati, the elegance of a Josef
Krips, the warmth of a Eugene Ormandy, the high spirits of a Lorin Maazel, or
the Viennese charm of a Fritz Reiner or Zubin Mehta or Jascha Horenstein.
Instead, Kunzel’s readings are more exhilarating than illuminating. That said,
when the sound comes across as impressively as it does here in this LIM
audiophile remaster of a 1985 Telarc release, it probably doesn’t matter. The
sonics rather overwhelm the notes and carry us along, making us marvel anew at
the creative genius of the Strauss family.

The program begins with a bang, with a real explosion at
the start of the Explosions Polka.
Then, we get three more quick-paced polkas and galops, again with sound effects
such as, literally, various bells and whistles, popping corks, pistol shots,
and thunderclaps in the Im Krapfenwald’l
Polka, the Champagne Polka, and the Banditen
Galop. Some purists may feel Telarc indulged in too many such aural
effects, but one should keep in mind that when the Strausses wrote this music,
audiences enjoyed and expected a degree of extravagance.

The first big waltz comes with On the Beautiful Blue Danube, in which Kunzel seems at first a
little earthbound and mundane; however he soon warms up to the piece, even if
he never quite gets the full measure of the waltz rhythms involved. Likewise,
his handling of Tales from the Vienna
Woods never exactly catches fire until well underway. It’s as though the
conductor were holding something back for as long as he could and then still
wasn’t entirely sure how to cope with the pulses of a waltz. There follow the Radetzky March, the Feuerfest Polka, the Auf der Jagd
Polka, the Bahn Frei Polka, the Pizzicato Polka, and the Unter Donner und Blitz Polka, numbers
that come off best.

If I have any reservations about the album, they include
the short playing time (48:10) and the preponderance of fast tunes on the
program, with only two waltzes (The Blue
Danube and the Tales from the Vienna
Woods). So it’s more of showpiece than I’d like. Still, with the inclusion
of an outstanding Radetzky March,
it’s hard not to enjoy the selections.

Although there is a certain lack of subtlety in Kunzel’s
conducting and although the Cincinnati Pops lack the plush precision of a
Vienna Philharmonic, the conductor and orchestra are clearly having a good
time, and their enthusiasm shows.

Telarc recorded the album in 1984 at Music Hall,
Cincinnati, Ohio, releasing it the following year, and LIM (Lasting Impression
Music, a division of FIM, First Impression Music) remastered it in 2012 in
their UltraHD 32-bit mastering process. Engineer Michael Bishop, who helped
with the original recording, supervised the remastering, and the meticulous
UltraHD system did the rest. The sound is very dynamic, with a slightly
improved transient impact over the original Telarc product. Yet we also hear a
very smooth, warm, lifelike response, without a trace of brightness or edge,
which is probably the best quality of the remastering. Music Hall imparts a
pleasant resonant glow around the sonics that some audiophiles may think
detracts from the disc’s midrange transparency and others may feel adds to the
album’s overall realism. Adding further to the natural-sounding effect of the
acoustic is a good measure of depth to the orchestra; it’s easy to listen
“into” the players and distinguish their relative distances from one another.
Thus, imaging, always a hallmark of Telarc, is better than ever. Finally,
you’ll of course find the big Telarc bass drum in evidence throughout. This
remastering is all about big, room-filling sound, which you get in spades.

As always, LIM dress up the disc with an attractive,
high-gloss foldout container, the disc itself enclosed in an inner paper sleeve
and a static-free liner. It’s a handsome package.



To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Vienna (XRCD review)

Music of the Strausses and Weber. Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. JVC JM-XR24025.

I love this stuff. I
love waltzes, the Strausses, conductor Fritz Reiner, the Chicago Symphony, and
audiophile remasterings such as this XRCD from JVC (Victor Corporation of
Japan). What I don’t particularly like is the cost. But with an
ever-diminishing list of audiophile material available to the music lover, I
suppose we should savor what little we have and be willing to pay the price.

Here are the upsides
to the JVC product: I like the music, of course, and the way Reiner plays it.
Like almost everything the man conducted, it comes out fresher, more pointed,
more secure, and more clarified than ever before. Sure, Willi Boskovsky put
more bounce, more verve, into in Strauss waltzes, but Reiner adds the element
of purity. I like the selections, three Strauss, Jr. waltzes: “Morning Papers,”
“Emperor Waltz,” and “On the Beautiful Blue Danube”; Strauss Jr.’s brother
Josef Strauss’s waltz “Village Swallows”; Karl Maria von Weber’s “Invitation to
the Dance”; and Richard Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes.” And I like JVC’s
elegant packaging. Usually, I wouldn’t care for the Digipak approach. I always
worry that I’m going to damage a part of the center spindle and then be without
a case altogether. Yet JVC’s packaging is quite robust, and it simply looks
better than most other such housings I’ve come across, save for FIM/LIM’s.

Most important,
though, I like JVC’s impeccable 24-bit remasterings. Compared to RCA’s own release
of this material, the JVC product is clearer and tighter, with greater dynamic
impact. Using two separate CD players for instant comparisons (adjusting each
disc for equal volume and trading them out to ensure I wasn’t listening to the
sound of the players rather than the sound of the discs), I found the regular
RCA sounding very slightly softer and more veiled than the JVC remaster, with
less punch. Interestingly, the XRCD processing results in the JVC’s bass
seeming less loud, but in compensation we get a heightened force, impact, and
tautness, which is far more impressive than mere bass volume.

Still, there are
always downsides, and here are a few negative aspects of the JVC disc: It
doesn’t contain as much material as the RCA “Living Stereo” release, which also
includes not only the material from the original 1957 Vienna album but four additional Strauss waltzes from a later
Reiner recording. And the JVC issue is almost twice the price of the RCA.

Clearly, JVC XRCD’s
are not the most practical purchases in the world. They are for those few
pieces of music we cherish most and want to own and listen to in the absolute
best possible form. Sometimes, the very best costs extra.

JJP

The Strauss Family (CD review)

Waltzes and Polkas. Willi Boskovsky, Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra. EMI Masters 50999 9 18744 2 9.



According to everything I've read about Willi Boskovsky, his orchestras didn't particularly like him as a conductor. No matter. From playing violin with the Vienna Philharmonic he went to leading the orchestra in Strauss family waltzes in the 1950's and audiences adored him, which is all that counted. His Decca recordings from those early days are still the yardsticks by which many critics measure all newer Strauss recordings. By the early Seventies Boskovsky was recording for EMI with the Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra, and he re-recorded most of the major Strauss repertoire for them. Then, when digital entered the scene, he re-recorded them yet again, many of them two more times. What we have in this 2011 EMI Masters "Great Classical Records" release is a reissue of twelve famous pieces by Johann Strauss I, Johann Strauss II, and Eduard Strauss that Boskovsky recorded between 1971 and 1973.



Boskovsky's later digital Strauss recordings were more sprightly and open than these analogue recordings with the same orchestra, the analogue sound warmer and fuller, true, but softer and less detailed, too. These analogue performances also seem a fraction slower and less spontaneous than either his earlier Decca renditions or his later digital renderings. Not that they aren't still delightful; they just don't quite match Boskovsky's other releases.



Included among the waltzes, polkas, and overtures on the disc we get Strauss Jr.'s "Blue Danube" waltz, of course, the "Champagne Polka," the "Tales from the Vienna Woods" waltz, the "On the Hunt" polka, "A Night in Venice" overture, the "Vienna Blood" waltz, the "New Pizzicato Polka," the "Artist's Life" waltz, and the "Kaiser Waltz." Filling out the selections are brother Eduard Strauss's "On Track"; and father Strauss Sr.'s "Sigh" galop and "Radetzky March," the latter a traditional show closer.



One minor observation: The first times Boskovsky recorded "Tales from the Vienna Woods" (1963 and here in 1972), he used a real zither in the famous zither part, but in his first digital recording (1982) the conductor chose to bypass the zither and use a violin. EMI must have gotten some flack for that, and a few years later (1985) he relented and re-recorded the piece with a zither. I prefer the zither, as do most folks, I suspect, and it's good to hear it in its rightful place here.



Anyway, this latest disc presents a useful collection of Strauss music at a reasonable price. If it weren't for the fact that Boskovsky did better work and EMI and Decca offer about 800 other albums of the conductor's Strauss at a comparable price, I could be more enthusiastic about it. As it is, I'd recommend the disc only as a point of comparison alongside Boskovsky's first-choice material.



JJP

Strauss: Waltzes (HQCD review)

Antal Dorati, London Philharmonic Orchestra. HDTT HQCD139.



"Bracing" is how a friend described this 1966 album of Strauss waltzes to me many years ago. The disc contains five popular works by the "Waltz King," Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899), conducted with vim and vigor by Antal Dorati and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.



I think my friend's description put me off buying the album, though, since "bracing" was not exactly what I had in mind for this music. I have always been more attuned to the Viennese style embraced by conductors like Boskovsky, Reiner, Karajan, Ormandy, Bohm, and Kleiber, with their more lyrical, lilting, romantic manner. So, it was a delight finally to hear these Dorati performances, which are really quite a lot of fun, remastered by HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) in splendid sound.



Dorati takes the opening "Blue Danube" at an enlivening pace and reminds one that this conductor's interpretation is not for dancing but for listening. After that, Dorati presents "Tales from the Vienna Woods" at a slightly more moderate tempo, yet it's still plenty animated. Expect no sentimentality here. Next, we hear "Voices of Spring," voices that are definitely not timid utterances but strong March winds and forceful April showers. This is not Strauss for the timid. Dorati's way with "Artist's Life" is in a similar vein, with the emphasis on robust execution over light rhythms. The program concludes with "Wine, Women and Song," which probably benefits most from the conductor's invigorating design, and, as they do in all the numbers, the LPO play wonderfully well. Interestingly, this final waltz also displays the most-substantial bass response, making it quite...bracing.



Decca recorded the album in their Phase 4 series, a multi-miking technique the company used for many of their recordings in the Sixties and early Seventies. Whether one likes or dislikes the sound turns out, as expected, to be a matter of one's personal listening taste. Many people seemed to love it for its dynamic qualities and its precise left-to-right imaging, while audio engineers, record producers, and orchestra conductors liked it because it gave them a good deal of flexibility after the fact for tweaking the final product. Many audiophiles, however, disliked Phase 4 because it provided so little orchestral depth and tended to pin instruments to the wall like so many museum specimens. One thing's sure, though: The aggressive nature of the Phase 4 recording works well with Dorati's assertive approach to Strauss's music.



The folks at HDTT, who transferred the music from a commercially available Decca Phase 4 tape, were kind enough to send me two copies of the recording for comparison, one burned to a gold CD, the other to an HQCD. I used two separate CD players (a Sony and a Philips) for quick comparisons, and because I have no remote for my preamp, I persuaded the Wife-O-Meter to volunteer her services to switch on the fly between the discs. In addition, I traded out the discs twice between the players to be sure I wasn't hearing any idiosyncrasies in the sound of the machines. Let me tell you in advance that, yes, I heard differences, small but distinct, with every change of disc.



Until now, I had always considered gold the best medium for CD reproduction, at least when pressed. But HQCD seems now the preferred new standard of quality. HDTT, who also sell blank HQCD's at their Web site for buyers wanting to burn their own material, say of the product: "HQCD, or High Quality Compact Disc, is a state-of-the-art disc made from special materials and dyes, ensuring the best possible data transfer rates during the data burning process. HQCD media discs repeatedly yield the best sound quality possible from digital transfers because of their low BLER (Block Error) rates and lowest possible jitter rates."



In comparing the two discs, to my ears and on my equipment the gold-disc transfer was less consistent in its sound, sometimes appearing slightly warmer and softer than the HQCD, sometimes harsher and less detailed. On the HQCD, the sound appeared routinely better focused, yet smoother, too. The string tone, especially, which the Phase 4 miking makes brighter and more forward than I like, seemed better tamed, more natural, on the HQCD. Finally, in matters of dynamics, the HQCD appeared to have the advantage as well, with a somewhat tauter, better-defined impact.



This is not to say, however, that everyone would hear or appreciate the same differences I observed, nor that they would like one more than the other. Indeed, both discs sounded excellent, and I'm sure that in blind tests some listeners would prefer the sound of the gold disc over the HQCD, for whatever reasons. Certainly, there was nothing wrong with the gold disc, and depending on the sound of one's playback equipment, the sound of one disc or the other might better complement it.



Anyway, I wouldn't suggest the Dorati album as an absolute first choice in this material; it's a little too vigorously out of the ordinary to be the only Johann Strauss in one's collection. Yet as a choice to accompany one of the more-conventional recordings listed from the conductors at the top of the article, I highly recommend it.



For further information on the various formats, configurations, blank HQCD discs, and prices of HDTT products, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.



JJP

Philharmonic Ball: Music by Johann and Josef Strauss (XRCD review)

Willi Boskovsky, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.  LIM XR24 019.



In the booklet insert, Winston Ma, the owner and producer of the high-end label FIM/LIM Music, tells us that friends encouraged him to have among his audiophile remasters "at least one of Johann Strauss's waltz albums from the Decca catalog since these are such famous recordings."  Looking high and low for the best possible representative of the series, he settled on Willi Boskovsky's album Philharmonic Ball from 1959 to do up in the XRCD remastering process.  It's certainly hard to argue with his choice.



Boskovsky conducted the Vienna Philharmonic's famous New Year's concerts for twenty-five years, from 1954-1979, and in the late Fifties Decca wanted to produce an album of music that reflected the kind of program such an event would include.  If you are a fan of Mr. Boskovsky, of the Strauss family, or of the Vienna Philharmonic, this album is among the best things you can find.  Nobody did the Strausses better than Boskovsky, and no orchestra knew or played the Strausses better than the VPO.  Among the selections, you'll find the familiar--the "Blue Danube" and "Voices of Spring" waltzes, "Auf der Jagd," "Pizzicato Polka," "Perpetuum Mobile," and the less familiar-- "Ohne Sorgen, "Transsktionen," among others.



Now, here's the thing:  In the past four or five decades, Decca engineers have themselves remastered Boskovsky's early material many times over, and you will find the recordings on this LIM disc in various Decca collections at much lower cost.  You just won't find them any better.  LIM, a division of FIM Music, uses only the best master tapes they can find and remaster them in the celebrated XRCD process, using the JVC replication plant in Japan.  The results are very good and very expensive, but unless you have a quality sound system you may not appreciate the improvements.



Indeed, after comparing several of the cuts on this disc with ones on Decca's own discs, I concluded that most listeners on mid-fi equipment probably wouldn't notice any difference.  But that's not the point, is it?  These discs are for audio connoisseurs who want to extract the last ounce of fidelity from their music and hang the expense.



For the first few moments of my comparisons, I wasn't sure I heard any differences myself.  Then, flipping back and forth between the LIM and the Decca, I began to hear them.  The Decca was slightly foggier, duller, glassier, and less dimensional.  The LIM clarified the midrange, seemed to tighten the bass and extend the treble, and further opened up the soundstage.  Were they night-and-day differences?  Not at all, just very, very subtle.  Worth the money?  Probably, to the well-heeled audiophile.  In addition, both the Decca and the LIM displayed a touch of hard glassiness in the upper midrange, which I assume to be a part of the original master tape.



Finally, Ma explains in the booklet that he chose to leave the master tape hiss in the album, rather than use Dolby SR to remove it.  Although the hiss is audible during quieter passages, it presents no problem to one's enjoying the music.



JJP