Classical CD and DVD reviews. MusicWeb is not a subscription site and it is our advertisers that pay for it. Please visit their sites regularly to see if anything might interest you. Purchasing from them keeps MusicWeb free.

Classical Editor: Rob Barnett                               Founder Len Mullenger


CD REVIEW



Site Map

More Reviews

How to find a review

Classical CD Review Archive

Book Reviews

Film Music Reviews

Jazz CD Reviews

Nostalgia

Comment

Norman Lebrecht Weekly

Arthur Butterworth Writes

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands

Classical blogs

Reviewers Logs

Announcements

Don't Go Here!

Community

Bulletin Board

Web Ring

Reviewers

Helpers invited!

Resources

How Did I Miss That?

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Indexes
   Label
   Masterwork

Discographies

On-line Music
[Download sites]

Themed Review pages

Our Classic Classics

Online books
MWI Classical
     Encyclopaedia

Gilder Dictionary of
     Composers

MWI Pop
     Encyclopedia

Other Complete Books

Programme Notes

 

British Music Society
Performers
The BBC Proms
Musical WWW pages
Classical Music Online

Recording Companies and Retailers
Agents and Marketing
Publishers
Non-Classical Web pages
Orchestra Web Sites
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

 

Editorial Board
Classical Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Seen & Heard
Editor and Webmaster
   Bill Kenny
MusicWeb Webmaster
   Len Mullenger
Assistant Webmasters
   Patrick Waller
   David Barker

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office
Helping MusicWeb
Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools

Would you like a hyperlinked weekly summary of the CDs we have reviewed?
Click for further details

Sample: See what you will get


Pristine Classical

 

 

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major Op.47 Kreutzer (1803) [30:23]
Jacques Thibaud (violin)
Alfred Cortot (piano)
rec. Salle Chopin and Salle Pleyel, Paris, 27-29 May 1929
PRISTINE AUDIO PACM001 [30:23]

 


Pristine Audio’s XR technology is a claimed miracle of the transfer engineer’s art. Go to www.pristineclassical.com for specifics. Andrew Rose claims that pre-1945 78s now have their audible upper frequency range increased from between 5-6 kHz to somewhere between 11-13 kHz. He also goes further, boldly announcing that these transfers render “all previous transfers and restorations …entirely obsolete.” Since he’s embarking on a wide programme of XR restorations this is a defiant claim. He takes a modern recording of the work in question and utilises it as a reference file – as he did in bass-stiffening and percussion-enhancing the famous Heward Moeran Symphony recording. I’ve just reviewed his XR work on Kathleen Long’s post-war, 78-based, Fauré Deccas (see review). The sonic improvements in immediacy were certainly apparent.  Here however he takes on a much earlier 1929 Paris classic, the Thibaud-Cortot Kreutzer Sonata.

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.

In the end it doesn’t matter about graphs, reference copies, Natural Sound, predictive elements and finding harmonics embedded in high frequency noise – it depends on how the transfer appeals. I appreciate Rose will not agree. Many other people also won’t agree and will enjoy this – download it and see. If possible have access to another transfer and better still go and listen to the 78. I liked Rose’s work with the Long Deccas but not this Kreutzer. It’s going to be trial and error, one at a time it seems, in my XR experience.

Jonathan Woolf

 


 

Advertising Rates
Visitor stats
MusicWeb International
has over 21,000 Classical CD reviews on offer


Gerard Hoffnung Concerts &
The Bricklayer Story

Naxos Classical 

Australian Eloquence CDs on Buywell.com


New Releases

Hyperion
New Releases


Guild Music






MusicWeb sells the Polish
catalogue CDAccord
£10.50 post free W-W


MusicWeb sells the
Arcodiva catalogue
£12.00 post free W-W


Price Reduction: £11.00
post-free
world-wide
Try it and see - Sale or Return

 

MusicWeb can now offer you discs from the following catalogues:
Prices include postage

[Acte Préalable £13.50]
[Arcodiva £12.00]
[Ashgate Music Books]
[Avie from £6.25]
[British Music Society £13.49]
[CDACCORD from £10.50 ]
[ClassicO £12.50]
[Hortus £14.99 ]

[Lyrita ONLY £11.00 ]
LYRITA Sale or Return
[Onyx £12.00
]
ONYX Sale or Return
[REDCLIFFE £11 ]
[Tactus £11.50 ]
[Talent from £12.00 ]
[Toccata Classics £12.50 ]

MusicWeb Recommended Recordings 2008

DISCS OF THE YEAR 2007

 



Return to Review Index



Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board.  Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer..

 


You can purchase CDs and Save around 22% with these retailers: