Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose

Recorded 1951 & 1953 

DEBUSSY La Mer

*RAVEL La Valse

MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL Pictures at an Exhibition

L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

*L'Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris

Ernest Ansermet conductor

Downloads include full orchestral scores of the Debussy & Ravel 

Short Notes  

Some of Ernest Ansermet's finest recordings and performances were of music by the great French composers, and having consulted both Debussy and Ravel personally on the interpretation of their works, can be said to have a particularly authentic vision for performance.

This collection brings together a fabulously fluid La Mer with Ravel's La Valse (recorded with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra) and a particularly vibrant take on Ravel's orchestrated version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

All three recordings have benefited enormously from Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering system, which has unleashed unexpected depth, vibrancy and clarity from these early-fifties Decca recordings.

Notes on the transfers:

These Decca recordings, made in Geneva and Paris in the early 1950s, demonstrate the growing technical prowess of the company in the earliest days of tape and vinyl recordings, building on their ffrr 78rpm recordings of the 1940s.

However, there was still room for considerable improvement over the original sound quality - something which would come rapidly with experience - and there are audibly significant differences between the 1951 Debussy recording and the two later, 1953 recordings. The original Debussy lacked depth and had a quite constricted sound to it, whilst the Mussorgsky was also somewhat thin, though without sounding quite as harsh.

Of the three, the Ravel, recorded in Paris rather than Geneva, was the most successful, and in these new Pristine remasterings is the one which sounds closest to the original. Fortunately Decca's equipment did capture a lot more than is apparent from a casual listen to their original LPs, and with the re-equalisation inherent in Pristine's 32-bit XR remastering technology, the hidden depths and heights of each of these superb recordings can now be enjoyed to the full.
Andrew Rose

Review Mussorgsky, 1954, The Gramophone:

"...the Decca, I think, scores an inner; arguably a bull's-eye. In places it sounds to me better than any record I have ever heard ; and everywhere it sounds extremely good. It has all the qualities of the H.M.V. and another new one, in addition: without, anywhere, losing any vitality it has a less rasping string tone--both muted (as in The Old Castle), and unmuted, the strings sound more human than previously in such high tension recordings. The Catacombs-those thundering chords for trombones and tuba-sound less impressive than in the Kubelik version; partly due to a less altogether dominating and convincing performance than the Chicago brass section gave. But the only reservation worth making about the recording, I think, is one about the second side of the disc-from The Hut on Fowl's Legs to the end: the copy in front of me (which, incidentally, is for a Decca, quite remarkably free from surface swish) seems to be slightly less overwhelming here; to deteriorate just sufficiently to cause a leaf or two to flutter disconsolately from the laurel wreath the record has still well earned. I was convinced, listening to side one, that it was the best recording I had ever heard, in spite of an occasional feeling of slight overloading; the conviction wavered, though, on the reverse.

The electrifying performance that gave the engineers material to work on in the first place must not be overlooked; in the ordinary way it would run no danger of that. Ansermet does the whole thing beautifully; though Kubelik remains the only conductor of the three who joins the pictures up properly where necessary. The Swiss trumpet player plays Samuel Goldenburg-the picture that was the undoing of the Belgian player-better even than the American; he makes the actual rhythm of his exhausting phrase much clearer. Though, while individuals are under discussion, it may be suggested that no alto-playing troubadour has yet functioned beneath the walls of The Old Castle with quite such convincingly lugubrious effect as the saxophonist of the Chicago orchestra... "

MP3 Sample  Debussy La Mer - 1st mvt   

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Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose

Recorded 1948 and 1951

HAYDN String Quartet in G, Op.77 No.1

MOZART String Quartet No. 2 in D, K155 

HAYDN String Quartet in E flat, Op.64 No.6

Quartetto Italiano

Paolo Borciani   violin

Elisa Pegreffi   violin

Piero Farulli   viola

Franco Rossi   cello

Short Notes  

Regarded as one of the great quartets of the twentieth century, the earlier years of Quartetto Italiano's lengthy recording career took place with Decca and spanned the crossover period from 78rpm shellac to tape and the vinyl LP, as this collection demonstrates.

As these stunning new transfers show, the Italians had a great affinity for the music of both Haydn and Mozart and of the Classical period in general - they are rightly also remembered for their complete Beethoven cycle, amongst others.

Here the playing has a freshness and clarity which matches perfectly that of the music - and thanks to this new XR remastering, much enhanced sound quality as well - highly recommended.

Recording Notes

The recordings presented here span the end of the 78rpm era and the start of the LP era - the 1952 recordings were given standard 78rpm matrix numbers (IAR551-2 and IAR563-68) though is it uncertain whether they were ever issued on 78s, and would have been recorded onto tape.

The earlier recording, 1948's Haydn E flat Quartet, most certainly was issued on 78s (AK2159-60) and must have been among Decca's last recordings made direct to disc - this was clearly apparent when restoring the recording from their own LP transfer, in this case a mint ten-inch 33rpm German pressing, where remnants of surface noise and swish clearly indicated original 78rpm rotation.

Also appreciable is the decrease in general surface noise with the advent of tape, coupled with increased general recording fidelity between 1948 and 1952. That said, each of these recordings has benefited greatly from 32-bit XR remastering, in which I've been able to bring out a great deal of clarity and fine detail, whilst retaining an open, organic sound.

I was also able to enhance the originally rather dry sound of the Santa Cecilia recordings, using precisely mapped acoustic models of the hall in which the recordings were made, to "place the listener" in the centre of the seventh row of the auditorium - thus allowing the sound of the hall itself to round out the tone of the quartet in a pleasing and entirely authentic manner.

Review Haydn Op.64/6, 1949, The Gramophone:

"I played this set immediately after the Schubert (reviewed elsewhere) and, putting them side by side, one cannot help reflecting, what an astonishing expansion took place in music in so short a time: an enormous expansion of range of mood-and of sheer size (Schubert's 10 sides to Haydn's 4). But im-mediately comes a second thought. Expansion, yes: Progress, no. This Haydn is perfection of its kind. String quartet lovers are in luck this month for here is another more than ordinarily good performance. It is lovely Haydn playing, above all in the last two movements, and throughout it has moment after moment when the charm of style cannot fail to enchant.

There is just one phrase which I think over-steps the bounds of ciassical style-if you have a score you can find it in the slow movement, just before the minor section and again just before the end. (Bars with a sf.) But this is nothing to set against such excellent interpretation.

As to balance and recording, also good, though I do not find the cello line entirely satisfactory. I am not sure if the player has perhaps a rather tubby tone or whether the recorders might have given us a little more of him-possibly both. At any rate, in the middle, minor, section of the slow movement I needed my score to know that there is a bass line of B flats for the first few bars: and elsewhere I found his line not consistently telling.

Yet this is a very good set of records and another work which you should at least hear and judge for yourself."

MP3 Sample  Haydn Op. 71/1, 1st movement 

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