I have been under the impression that MOT usually used the original 78RPM recording to begin his project ...
He is still active over there. I have a lot of his work, but never knew him to work with other people or use other people's transfers.
If MOT 's starting point for each project is always some original 78RPM recording, I do not see how he would ever need other people's transfer ...
It's not that it hasn't been done before at Naxos. I wonder who manipulated the Toscanini transfers/masterings Richard Caniell did for Naxos in the 1990s. I'm told Mr Caniell was disgusted with the outcome and broke off all contacts with the label.
OK, but that's not the point. I was just saying that manipulating masterings done by others allegedly has been done before at Naxos.
I have also heard that the much adored Annie Fischer's Beethoven Piano Sonatas is made up of many cut and pastes. Perhaps the ends justify the means ...
True, but I understand that some of those alterations were made because she wasn't happy with the originals. Apparently they continued doing so after her death.
In this case, they do, for that remains my favorite set and I have never heard any evidence of the cut/pasting in the performances.
I must admit that her Hungaroton Beethoven Sonatas cycle didn't appeal to me at all when I first heard it, but it grew on me, though I still have mixed feelings about it.
Cuts and pastes in recorded music in the digital domain are very simple and may become much more prevalent down the road ...
I'm copy and pasting this from Immortal's site: Best sound over all previous editions. Extensive notes and broadcast commentary and ovations. From the Recording Notes by Richard Caniell: This 1941 broadcast of the Sixth Symphony and Piano Concerto was released by us through Naxos, but they omitted the Voyevoda and the commentary without our knowledge or permission, and the sound was denigrated in a loss of overtones, in some sound compression of the tuttis and in a thickening of the bottom end, hence this release of the complete concert. Our original tape of this broadcast from Gardner revealed the transfer from the lacquers to be good, the surface noise sporadic and not excessive and the dynamics needing only a little emphasis to reverse the leveling which the original broadcast engineers imparted to the sound transmission. Its many pitch problems were solved by the young conductor John Sullivan, who is our music consultant. We believe the All-Tchaikovsky Benefit Concert to be a worthy addition to our knowledge of Toscanini’s involvement with these works and represented the first occasion when Horowitz and Toscanini collaborated in the First Piano Concerto. ====================== The lack of high frequency energy is readily apparent on the Naxos CD I pictured above. As far as I can see on Naxos Historical website the CD I pictured is the only release they have done for the 1941 Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1 with Horowitz/Toscanini. You can see this Youtube video of the first movement: The Naxos CD lacks any of that brilliance in the upper registers.
Speaking of Toscanini/Horowitz's Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, I have the following CD ... I wonder how many times did the duo perform this concerto?
Debussy piano music, especially the Images and the Estampes Reich's Mallet Quartet A lot of the minimalist piano music performed by Jerone van Veen on Brilliant Classics Late Morton Feldman Vivaldi concertos
According to the Naxos site Mark Obert-Thorn did the sound restoration of the Piano Concerto; judging by the above quote he used the Immortal Performances tape, so apparently he did not use only 78s for his transfers/remasterings.
Van Cliburn, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1, sorry if this offends anyone I still find this a highly over rated performance, just lackadaisical all around. I have been in a Tchaikovsky PC1 mood so digging out old discs to see if I changed my opinion on any. Certainly not this. And now Gilels with Maazel, which is a very close second to Richter/Karajan. Unfortunately my 2-fer reissue CD on EMI uses generic art with a forest and not the original LP art below:
I agree that Cliburn performance is overrated. In fact, I would say all of this concerto recordings are overrated.
For me is mostly vocal and choral works, Renaissance Polyphony; Huelgas Ensemble, Tallis, Palestrina, etc It may be a contradiction, but even Requiems, Cantatas and Masses are soothing for me.
Afterward I actually went to Amazon reviews to see if anyone I recognized reviewed it and just saw a bunch of generic reviews. A shame since the recording quality is nice and the remastering by Sound Mirror is wonderful. The way the horns limp in to start the first movement sets the stage for the rest of the work and it never really gets much better