Good news from Presto to EU customers. New Tax rules on EU physical orders from 9th November 2021 There's also a box set sale going on until 10th January. Box Set Sale - up to 50% off | Presto Music
I'm guessing it's a "holding date" and they haven't settled on a release date. Something similar happened with a Killers album last year (I think) and they announced the actual date a few weeks in advance, several months before the end of the year date that had been in place for ages. It took my record store by surprise when I asked for it, because he hadn't heard the date officially, even though lots of online stores had.
I've been on a huge Stravinsky binge for the last week, what a great time listening to music all day playing with the kids, hoping to turn them into Stravinsky maniacs The nice thing about these various types of box sets (conductor, composer, performer, etc) is discovering performances for some of your favorite pieces. I really can't put a price on getting excited about hearing some exceptional performance that I haven't heard before. We got Chailly Stravinsky Edition, the New DG and Warner within the same year, pretty amazing. I'll write up some more about them later, the Warner is the most recent one I've cracked into, received this last month-ish along with the two Bohms. This whole having nothing to do is really making me want to put speakers in every room in the house. One random complaint of mine was the New DG Stravinsky booklet having some awful chemical smell to it that has nearly all but disappeared by storing it outside the box. When this first came in I listened to a handful of CDs I hadn't heard before but then put it away to listen to other music, now it's back in the heavy rotation. I received an email from her acknowledging that a replacement disc will go out, thank you for bringing this issue to our attention as well as providing the contact emails.
I am stunned they were able to get a second printing off so quickly with all the shortages in labor and supply chains going on right now. I don't listen to a lot of classical era works and skipped it the first time around, but could not resist it when it came back in print.
In stock at amazon.de for 95 euro: https://www.amazon.de/Orpheus-Chamber-Orchestra-Oco/dp/B08TZ6TD95/
Anyone who has the new Furtwangler box think the remastering might be too harsh? The selections on Spotify - not optimal, of course - reveal much clarity, but suggest to me this might be at the expense of warmer, more pleasing sound.
Someone is selling a hard-to-find rare "brand new" copy of Vegh playing Bartok string quartets on Ebay. The price was 19.00 during this week, and increased to 22.00 GBP today. I have been long waiting for a re-release and would buy this one myself... if Ebay global shipping price wasn't so high... adding the import taxes it results in more than 120.00 GBP for me, which is insane. But if someone from UK had this item in their radar... great opportunity
There is an interesting auction going on at catawiki.nl: https://www.catawiki.com/nl/a/569983-platenveiling-klassieke-muziek Karajan 1960-70-80 is now € 700 and Mozart 225 costs € 800, with five days to go... Bach Gardiner: € 201 Bach Koopman: € 151 etc
It does not sound harsh to me. On the contrary, it sounds very smooth and natural. That being said, there are certain recordings in the collection where the sound is not ideal. I have many Furtwangler recordings on British EMI LPs that came out in the 60s and 70s and was able to compare them with the new remasters. In all cases, I preferred the new Art & Son remasters. And when the sound was not optimal, it sounded that way in the original releases so I am guessing that was the way the master tapes sound after all. In my opinion, this Wagner box contains the best these recordings have ever sounded. It might not be perfect but it is the best that it will ever be, again IMO of course. PS. Evaluations on sound are to a large degree system-dependent. My system is tuned to be on the warm side of neutral, but still, I do not think I am off the mark when I say that these remasters are not harsh at all.
Same impressions here, sounds great. One big plus is they didn't kill the pre-war recordings with noise reduction, the way EMI used to do. I went a bit further and downloaded from Presto some of the post-war Beethoven recordings in 24/192 and they sound even better than the cd's in the box, there is extra air and detail in the high frequencies. In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, if you have the means I highly recommend picking them up.
Off topic, but for anyone into Mahler there is a beautiful looking hi-def copy on Youtube of Ken Russell's "Mahler" movie:
The new Warner Furtwangler box has the best sounding transfers I've heard as well for that material. It's a big step up in quality from the older EMI Great Furtwangler box (the one with several photos of him on the box). Unfortunately some of his best performances from radio or live remain the ones where you have to explore a good amount to get the best transfers, and often not very common or cheap :/ Here are the contents of the Robert Craft conducted Anton Webern box, all recordings are from the 1950s. I've been listening to the Craft Naxos Stravinsky discs and these are pretty damn good and in really nice recording quality. I think I will take a detour from Stravinsky to dive into this, I'm pretty excited to hear new Webern. The usual crappy packing from European Amazons with no manufacturers box on any of them with a hole in the shipping box and surprisingly not even the tiniest bit of damage to any of them.
Sounds quite good through my speakers. Not sure why my earphones and/or ears were giving me such trouble this morning.
Just received an email from JPC about the St-Saens replacement disc. They received them from the supplier and are currently mailing them out.
The more I listen to mono the more it sounds like what I actually hear in a concert hall. When it’s live, it’s all coming from the front, not the sides. Opera might be different because of the way it’s miked.
Not sure if I get this right or how your system is performing but in stereo, it should also comes from the front with some nuances panning from the middle to the sides. Anything else would suggest wrong speaker placement, inverted cable polarity, wall reflection, etc. You are right about the opera singers miking. I find it very annoying to have the singers voice only coming from the letf or the right speaker, like they are standing completely at edge of the stage.
I was using headphones and trying to recall sitting in what is now called David Geffen Hall (not close, but farther back). My speakers are about 10’ apart and I would be 10’ from them on the couch (a triangle) if I weren’t walking around aimlessly. Does one really get a stereo feel at a concert hall? Perhaps. I just don’t recall. It’s been too long. Are ears for knowing which direction sound is coming from, not detecting orchestral nuances?
Temporarily out of stock, but very good price of this box: Radu Lupu Complete Recordings 35 € at Amazon Spain. https://www.amazon.es/Radu-Lupu-Complete-Recordings/dp/B013L20KIA/
I really do not understand what Amazon is doing. They now list all sorts of long oop boxsets as "temporarily out of stock". And then they cancel such orders anyway
Psychoacoustic can make a very nice thread on its own. To complexify things the room, the hall, your seat location, the played level and probably hundreds other variables may influence what you are actually hearing. Some concert halls acoustic have quasi perfect acoustic wherever you sit, like the new MSO Symphony House in Montreal as an example. But generally further away you are sitting from the orchestra, harder it gets to locate the instruments source hence your comment on mono sounding more realistic than stereo in a concert situation. If you want to try something that actually works, have a look at this link. Adjust to your preference within 1 sq. ft. Room Setup Calculators
