My first revelation of the Angel phenomenon o
Yes, David is in Canada!
My first revelation of the Angel phenomenon occurred about 40 years ago, involving Fruhbeck de Burgos' recording of Mendelssohn's "Elijah". I spent most of my career working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and had close connections with the record library. One day a British pressing of this recording came in on gold coloured labels from EMI. I thought the records radiated quality and even looked like fine jewels so I borrowed them to see if they sounded any better - I was astounded! Not only was there the organ support which I'd never even heard before because it was absent on my light blue labeled Canadian Angels, but the clarity of the Choir and Orchestra, the lack of distortion on choral peaks and the silence of the surface were all thrilling. I, of course, immediately ordered a copy of this from England and proceeded to replace many of my important Angel recordings with their British equivalent. I expected, of course, that when
the CD was introduced, it would have a sound which matched the English pressings - sadly it did not. Sometimes it was just a sound that was closer to the traditional North American pressings, sometimes it was much worse. Two examples - Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's Christmas album; not only does this album have the by now expected lack of bass but in "Silent Night", on the LP she sings a duet with herself, on the CD the second voice of the duet is absent, (however the CD is in true stereo while the LP never was). The second example is Weingartner's Brahms cycle; in the first Symphony at one point the needle on the playback machine hits dirt or something and repeats a revolution. Even if they had a copy that didn't play properly, it would be easy to edit out the extra revolution, but nobody noticed it. I picture a mastering engineer who wasn't the least bit interested in Brahms playing the record almost silently while they listened to something
else while this was being done.
If I recall correctly, wasn't the Klemperer "Eroica" issued on CD in true Stereo for the first time?
db
>________________________________
> From: Carl Pultz <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2013 10:36:48 PM
>Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Bass less reissues from England,U.S. Record club versions
>
>
>Oh, yes. I remember reading as a kid how Capitol reinterpreted EMI
>recordings for American "tastes," which seems to mean what you said. That's
>why I'm surprised by the quality of the Klemperer disc - somebody screwed up
>and made a decent record. I don't know who on the list is where, so any
>casual comparison might be to US product, or to real EMI ASDs and such.
>Looks like David is in Canada. In the US, if you didn't live in a large
>city, chances were you didn't come across imported pressings very often
>until late in the LP era. Many that did show up were items not issued on
>Angel. I've only got a few.
>
>I do have Klemp's Eroica on EMI. If I find the early CD issue, I'll rip 'em.
>No organ, unfortunately, but it could be interesting to see what's above
>70Hz.
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