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London CS 6030: Knappertsbusch Conducts Music of Brahms




London CS 6030
 Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Academic Festival overture, Tragic Overture
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Hans Knappertsbusch, conductor

 Pressing: UK (US release, pancake pressing), ED1

Date first published: 1950s

 Stampers: ZAL 3709-1E, ZAL 3710-2E

 Performance: 6/10

 Sound: 5/10

 Price range: $25-128 (mean $52) on popsike.com

 Comments: While two cases of Ebola have now been diagnosed in the United States, my colleague Miles has had London Blueback fever for the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd do him a favor and point him away from this record.  Truth of the matter is that it's, well, boring.  None of the works here receive performances that'll make you sit up in your chair.  The Variations on a Theme of Haydn is a sleeper, and the Academic Festival Overture is taken at a pace too relaxed for me that it just robs the music of its life and humor.  The pancake pressing has some baseline surface noise, even on the very clean copy that I own.  The sound has some of that warm tubey early FFSS nature to it but is anemic, congested, and distorted with a limited dynamic range.  Altogether, a disappointing performance and recording.

 Moon and Gray gave this album a 5 for performance and 4 for sound in Full Frequency Stereophonic Sound.  I'm not surprised, are you?

Comments

  1. AndyWJuly 31, 2015 at 4:37 PM

    I have this on STS 15027 with ZAL 3709-4W / ZAL 3710 5W stampers which sounds dull and lacklustre

    I also have Eclipse ECS701 which is the same repertoire plus Alto Rhapsody Op 53. Stampers are ZAL 3658-1A / ZAL 3657-2A. It is hard to believe that these are taken from the same tapes such is the improvement in SQ over the STS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. aqlamJuly 31, 2015 at 4:43 PM

      Wow, no kidding! In the past, I certainly have been impressed with the SQ on many of those Eclipse reissues. In many cases, the performances sound much more modern in terms of SQ. I had the Eclipse of Reiner/VPO conducting Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, Wolff/PCO conducting Massenet, and Kertesz/OSR conducting Shostakovich 5th ... all had really good sound.

      Delete
    2. MelesJuly 31, 2015 at 4:50 PM

      That eclipse with 1A is probably really late with the Neumann SX-74 cutter head and its pristine treble.

      Delete

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