Historical Recordings

[Que]

I have a couple of Pristine Audio issues: the Cortot-Thibaud recording of Beethoven' Kreutzer sonata, and the 1936 Weingartner transfer of Beethoven's Eroica. Both CDs are truly first class; in fact, the Weingartner is pretty miraculous and could easily be mistaken for a recording twenty years later.

Harry, thanks for the info. 
I'm considering to buy a few items from them.
LvB/Weingartner sounds interesting, also issues with Gerhard Hüsch's Winterreise and Schöne Müllerin.



I saw that the LvB III with Weingartner is done with their new restauration technique.
Judging from the description it seems a rather interventionistic technique, which makes me a bit suspicious because I've never came across one that worked... Their claim to "magic" doesn't exactly help to win my trust either.. The needle-in-the-groove plus some de-clicking and filtering, always came up best till now for me! Could you comment on your experience with it, does it sound natural?

And I trust you bought actual CD's instead of downloads?

thanks, Q

[Harry Collier]

Judging from the description it seems a rather interventionistic technique, which makes me a bit suspicious because I've never came across one that worked... Their claim to "magic" doesn't exactly help to win my trust either.. The needle-in-the-groove plus some de-clicking and filtering, always came up best till now for me! Could you comment on your experience with it, does it sound natural?
And I trust you bought actual CD's instead of downloads?

Yes, I bought the CDs. They are very cheap and arrive very quickly (to the UK, anyway). As for interventionism: that's a big question. It's usually suspect except when, for example, Mark Obert-Thorn used it to "improve" the pretty bad original sound of the Heifetz-Toscanini Beethoven violin concerto, or Michael Dutton "improved" the poor sound quality of the original 1929 Albert Sammons recording of the Elgar violin concerto. In both these cases I am eternally grateful for the improvements. I have no idea of what the original sound of the 1936 Weingartner Eroica was like; all I know is that for me the Pristine Audio refurbishment means that I can appreciate what a good 1936 recording must have sounded like on a first-class record player, with pristine copies of the 78s. All too often -- particularly with orchestral recordings from the 78 rpm era -- we need to make big allowances for the sound quality. Not so with this transfer of the Weingartner. It could well be an average-quality recording from 1953 or so.

The proof of the pudding is in the listening, as ever. All I can say is: I like it very much! Having just glowered through my new purchase of Michael Dutton's transfer of the Busch Quartet playing Beethoven' Op 131 (over-filtered, with Busch's violin sounding as if he paid €15 for it), I have emailed Andrew Rose of Pristine to urge him to embark on the Busch Beethoven set.

[Que]

Harry, thanks for your comments. I think I'll just have to try one!

Q

[George]

Harry, thanks for your comments. I think I'll just have to try one!

Q

Of course, you can download 2 full CDs of samples for free to get an idea of their work, Q. 

Each CD has excerpts (movements) from about 15 different recordings.

[SimonGodders]

The proof of the pudding is in the listening, as ever. All I can say is: I like it very much! Having just glowered through my new purchase of Michael Dutton's transfer of the Busch Quartet playing Beethoven' Op 131 (over-filtered, with Busch's violin sounding as if he paid €15 for it), I have emailed Andrew Rose of Pristine to urge him to embark on the Busch Beethoven set.

Yes, agree. Had it and shipped it out pronto, dreadful.

[Harry Collier]

Yes, agree. Had it and shipped it out pronto, dreadful.

It's such a shame, since this really is one of the very greatest recorded performances of all time. I've known it since I bought an LP transfer back in 1980.

[Rabin_Fan]

I bought the Michael Rabin 2 CD Tahra live set recently. It is on its way to me.

[squarez]

I have emailed Andrew Rose of Pristine to urge him to embark on the Busch Beethoven set.

If it works I'll immediately email him another request for the Kulenkampff - Beethoven Cto recording!

[Harry Collier]

If it works I'll immediately email him another request for the Kulenkampff - Beethoven Cto recording!

Here, the Dutton transfer is better. But it needs a really good re-transfer one day (I suspect the original recording wasn't too hot). Rose tells me the Busch-Beethoven is not on his immediate priority list, but he'll look at it if he can get hold of a good set of the 78 originals.#

[Que]

Interesting review on musicweb by Jonathan Woolf of one of Pristine's new method (XR) transfers.

Q



Excerpt:
After the science what do one's ears tell one? I set up an A-B-C test and took my (Italian) HMV DB1328-1331 – the one that announces the violinist as a certain G. Thibaud – and stacked it up against Mark Obert-Thorn's transfer on Biddulph LAB028 (a 1990 transfer) and the XR. Then as usual in this kind of examination I continually switched between the three. The results to my ears remained constant. The noise suppression – Cedar-ing I suppose – leaves a grainy, steely subculture of sound. Fair enough. The main point of interest however is the XR work itself. Doubtless Andrew Rose would say I can't hear properly – or hear what I want to hear. Well, so be it, but I find this, after the Long, rather disappointing. To me this transfer sounds curiously synthetic and treble starved; the constriction also, in a way I can't explain, seems to affect Thibaud's tone, which seems fractionally to become cloudy, as it certainly doesn't on the 78 or in Obert-Thorn's quite noisy but essentially unfussy transfer.

[George]

Excerpt:
After the science what do one's ears tell one? I set up an A-B-C test and took my (Italian) HMV DB1328-1331 – the one that announces the violinist as a certain G. Thibaud – and stacked it up against Mark Obert-Thorn's transfer on Biddulph LAB028 (a 1990 transfer) and the XR. Then as usual in this kind of examination I continually switched between the three. The results to my ears remained constant. The noise suppression – Cedar-ing I suppose – leaves a grainy, steely subculture of sound. Fair enough. The main point of interest however is the XR work itself. Doubtless Andrew Rose would say I can't hear properly – or hear what I want to hear. Well, so be it, but I find this, after the Long, rather disappointing. To me this transfer sounds curiously synthetic and treble starved; the constriction also, in a way I can't explain, seems to affect Thibaud's tone, which seems fractionally to become cloudy, as it certainly doesn't on the 78 or in Obert-Thorn's quite noisy but essentially unfussy transfer.

Thanks Que, this is consistent with my experience with the E Fischer WTC. The tone just wasn't as good as Pearl and on Pristine unfortunately sounds, as the above reviewer said of the Cortot/Thibaud, curiously synthetic.

[Que]

Thanks Que, this is consistent with my experience with the E Fischer WTC. The tone just wasn't as good as Pearl and on Pristine unfortunately sounds, as the above reviewer said of the Cortot/Thibaud, curiously synthetic.

George, thanks for the info. It all does make me curious.
What I find striking in the review is that Woolf not just compared transfers, but also compared with the (78rpm) original.

Q

[George]

George, thanks for the info. It all does make me curious.
What I find striking in the review is that Woolf not just compared transfers, but also compared with the (78rpm) original.

Q

Yeah, that's the way to do it. (If you can)

[Harry Collier]

Well, having bought one of the Melodia transfer CDs of wartime Furtwängler performances, I can answer my own question as to transfer quality. In two words: astonishingly good. We associate the Russians with great musicians, but not usually with the creation of great CDs. But the transfer quality (by T. Badeyan) from the original German tapes is truly excellent. Now I have the problem of rushing off to buy other transfers in this Melodia series, and they are quite expensive – around £13 per CD from MDT.
The CD I bought features Furtwängler in Sibelius (En Saga, and the Violin Concerto) and makes me really regret that he didn't do more Sibelius; he seems to have a real feeling for the ebb and flow of this music. And for almost the first time, we can hear what Kulenkampff must really have sounded like (in the Sibelius concerto). The CD also contains a grim performance of Beethoven's Coriolan overture.
The virtue of the wartime performances is well known: Furtwängler at his peak, and in front of a live audience. Astonishing tape recording quality for the time – far better than any other country could have managed. And the frisson in the playing and conducting, probably brought about by the knowledge that the Red Army was now rolling inexorably westwards and that Götterdämmerung was nigh.
Well done Melodia – and T. Badeyan.

[Que]

Well, having bought one of the Melodia transfer CDs of wartime Furtwängler performances..

Harry,

Fuly agreed, on every point you make - on the performances as well as on the sound.
This Kulenkampff recording was really an eye-opener for me.
I'm glad we now can enjoy the exceptional quality the German recording engineers achieved!

Q


P.S. Don't forget jpc: €13 a piece and €6 flat shipping rate to the UK.

[Harry Collier]

MDT has untill december 2007 a special offer on Naxos Historical! 

Q

Naxos Historical is a truly splendid series, for those who don't know it well. Inevitably, I have gravitated mainly towards the violin stuff (Heifetz, Kreisler, Milstein ... ) but the average transfer quality is very good, and the prices very fair indeed. A newbie could build up an excellent "historical" library by buying the Naxos discs. I'll weed through the MDT lists to find stuff I don't have already.

[Que]

Considering this recent discussion on Pristine Classical's XR transfers of 78 rpms:

What you have in mind is that someone artificially fills in the gaps (where information is lacking or distorted) - like the people at Pristine Classical claim they do successfully. In other words: make up information that was not there.
Though their definition of "historical" means they have somewhat older recordings in mind.

Their claim to magic:
"Pristine Audio XR remastering is quite simply the most astonishing remastering development in the field of historic recordings we know of. After the clicks and crackle have been removed and the hiss reduced, XR digs deep into the grooves to almost magically restore lost upper frequencies. It then scientifically rebalances the entirely frequency spectrum, bringing a degree of realism that is hugely greater than ever been heard before."

I've not heard any classical XRCDs, but the jazz I've heard have been pretty spectacular and well worth the hefty price. Don't dismiss their claims as advertising hyperbole without hearing them. (I'm guessing some of you have. I just hope all of you have before jumping on the bandwagon.)

And this from an analogue-lovin', filter-hating, digital-weary guy.

OK, now seriously!  First, the hyperboles use by Pristine are - whatever the quality of their work - downright ridiclous. Seems they like to make an effort in disqualifying themselves: "simply the most astonishing remastering development in the field of historic recordings we know of." "almost (!) magically restoring". Come on!

As for the actual results - it seems to sound rather nice. I believe Harry Collier was impressed, but also read a review in which it was being described as rather artificial (which it actually is).

Here is a new review on Musicweb in which a Pristine XR transfer of Schnabel's LvB piano concerto no. 5 is compared to tranfers on Pearl and Naxos.



Q

[George]

Considering this recent discussion on Pristine Classical's XR transfers of 78 rpms:


Here is a new review on Musicweb in which a Pristine XR transfer of Schnabel's LvB piano concerto no. 5 is compared to tranfers on Pearl and Naxos.



Q

Thanks a lot for that, Que. I am even more happy now with my Naxos. 

Pristine's "magic" sounds like manufactured sound, eh?   

[Drasko]

Considering this recent discussion on Pristine Classical's XR transfers of 78 rpms:

I believe that Kevin was referring to JVC XRCD when he mentioned jazz releases and not to Pristine Classical XR. Not sure but I think those two are completely different restoration processes. Might be wrong, though. 

[Que]

I believe that Kevin was referring to JVC XRCD when he mentioned jazz releases and not to Pristine Classical XR. Not sure but I think those two are completely different restoration processes. Might be wrong, though. 

Yes, now you mention it - he could very well have mistaken the discussion on Pristine's XR transfers for talk about JVC XRCD. I did never check if Pristine did also Jazz issues, since he mentioned it I just assumed it. But they don't. That puts his comments in another perspective....

Thanks a lot for that, Que. I am even more happy now with my Naxos. 

And I with my Pearl.

Pristine's "magic" sounds like manufactured sound, eh?  

So it appears!    The sound is partly manufactured, but to be successful it shouldn't sound like it...
And IMO Jonathan Woolf knows his stuff on historical transfers. I had my doubts from the start beacause I didn't like the interventionistic transfers by Dutton - though they don't substitute/"recreate" parts of the sound.

Q