Editorial - 2010 - A look back over the year


The year at Pristine started with our first release on 1st January 2010, and a recording I'd never expected to even try to work on - Miles Davis' 1959 jazz classic Kind of Blue (PAJZ009), which entered the public domain on that day. I'd been listening to it the previous summer and found the piano oddly flat, and out of curiosity decided to see what the XR remastering process might do to it. The results were sonically astonishing, so much so that I decided to risk the wrath of the purists (and possibly Sony Records) and issue it on Pristine. It quickly became one of our all-time best sellers.

The end of the same month saw the start of our Krauss Ring Cycle which, together with his Bayreuth Parisfal from the same year, 1953, kept me very busy and immersed in Wagner right through until May. Despite Pristine's inability to compete with other releases on price, it seems our sonics were sufficiently improved to tempt a good number of people, and the whole series proved remarkably successful.

A surprise hit, still ongoing, was the Beecham in Seattle series, of which another release is due soon. Despite the often ropey sound - the story of its preservation is a tale in itself - and the often rather rough and ready quality of the orchestral playing, it is a fascinating piece of musical history, and one that has captured a lot of interest.

Perhaps an unexpected parallel can be drawn between this and another series, which came out in quick succession in the weeks at the end of April and into May: another European in the USA, with rare performances in less-than-perfect sound quality and an unexpected orchestra. There perhaps the similarities ends, for this was our three-CD series of Karajan in New York (followed by a single issue "Karajan in Hollywood"), which started with a wonderful Beethoven 9th, live in Carnegie Hall in 1958 with a stellar set of musicians and singers. It certainly grabbed the enthusiastic attention of Gramophone's editor-in-chief, James Jolly.

Both Toscanini and Cantelli have enjoyed a number of releases this year, with more in the pipeline. I've enjoyed the privilege of working with Cantelli scholar Keith Bennett in compiling more live recordings from his excellent sources, always accompanied by his excellent notes. Meanwhile on the Toscanini front it seems to have been a year of Requiems - the most unexpected of which was the reconstructed live (including blemishes!) stereo 1951 Verdi Requiem, reviewed to the left of this column by Mortimer H. Frank in the new issue of Fanfare. Getting the two channels of this recording to come together and stay together was one of the toughest technical challenges I've tackled - but when I heard those opening bars in stereo for the first time I knew I had to finish it through to the end. I, and many others, will forever be grateful to the collectors who were able to furnish copies of the two recordings - and figure out that their differences might hold such remarkable potential.

A week's break in Catalonia, in north-eastern Spain, at the end of August, allowed me the opportunity of paying a short visit to the birthplace and home town of one of Spain's greatest composers, Isaac Albeniz, and the curiously tiny Albeniz Museum nestled in the narrow streets of Camprodon. It seems quite fitting therefore that we (almost) finish the year with Mark Obert-Thorn's transfer of a very long-lost Ormandy recording of Albeniz's Iberia suite, in orchestral form and played by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1956. It's not a version I knew until Mark's masters arrived here on Monday morning - but I thoroughly enjoyed it from the very first note!

It's impossible here to list every gem we've put out this year - though I'm trying! Mark's series of Alfred Hertz San Francisco releases was completed in good time for the orchestra's centenary year next year and has also seen excellent and enthusiastic reviews - "cause for rejoicing" (Fanfare). And Mark has continued to mine a seam of fabulous yet largely-forgotten recordings, mainly from the late 1920s, that have brought delight to many. Ward Marston, meanwhile, has provided us with two excellent Italian opera recordings from the same period: Sabajno's 1930 Tosca and Molajoli's 1928 Aida, both from La Scala and both in superb transfers.

Mengelberg's 1940 Beethoven Symphony series is nearly at a close, and always sounds so much better than it has a right to do! The Paul Paray revival continues apace - witness Jerry Dubins' comments also from Fanfare's new issue and reprinted in part here on Paray's German Music release: "This is truly one of the most exceptional performances of Brahms's Fourth Symphony I've heard. Even if there were nothing else on the disc, the price would be worth it just for that..." - praise doesn't come much higher!

But the final part of the year has without doubt belonged to the recordings of Wilhelm Furtwängler, previously a rather neglected figure in our catalogue, whose wartime Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner Ninths and Bruckner Symphony series have proved more successful than we ever imagined, and have provided us with a new all-time best-seller in the Bruckner 9th.

2010 has proved a real vintage year for Pristine - and we are all looking forward to 2011 delivering even more fresh surprises and delights yet unheard!

Andrew Rose, December 24th, 2010