Digitale Audio Systeme

ALBUM OF THE MONTH
IGOR STRAVINSKY: THE FIREBIRD
LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, ANTAL DORATI

The Paris-based Ballets Russes acquired fame in the early 20th century through the staging of exotic ballets on Russian themes. The ballets that Stravinsky composed for the company’s ingenious impresario Sergei Diaghilev between 1910 and 1913 trafficked in these neo-nationalist stereotypes.

Stravinsky’s first ballet for Diaghilev, The Firebird, composed in 1910 had a profound influence on French society: The look of the ballet was so dazzling as to influence French fashion, and the music provided relief from the trends of Impressionism and Expressionism.

Ironically, nothing in the ballet was original or new. The scenario is a kasha of Russian fairytale and myth. The ballet unfolds in two tableaus, relating the story of the good Prince Ivan, who frees 13 princesses from the evil Kashchei the Immortal, falling in love with one of them on the way. Throughout, the Firebird serves as Ivan’s magical helper. The music is likewise rooted in the past, still under the powerful spell of Stravinsky’s teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, yet quite raw and powerful.

The performance of the London Symphony under Dorati is congenial with perfect balance, colourful orchestral palette and the lyrical beauty of the score clearly presented.

The sound of the recording is exceptionally lucid, dynamic, and well spread out in a very wide acoustic space. The dynamic range is truly scary. The strings are particularly rich and sweet, especially for a Mercury recording. Not only is the sound subtle and wide-ranging, it has a nuanced atmospheric signature that pulls you into its sphere, notwithstanding the audible tape noise.

If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the audience, this is for you. It’s what great vintage analog recordings are renown for. This is a masterpiece of Wilma Cozart and Robert Fine, the driving forces behind Mercury Living Stereo, recorded in England’s Watford Town Hall in Mid-1959. Indeed, it is one of the best-sounding recordings of all times - a real sonic treasure.

Recording: Watford Town Hall, June 7, 1959
Label: Mercury Records
Format: PCM 192kHz, 24bit

ALBUM OF THE MONTH

GETZ/GILBERTO

STAN GETZ AND JOÃO GILBERTO (FEAT. ANTÔNIO CARLOS JOBIM & ASTRUD GILBERTO)

It is still summer. So some Bossa Nova is quite appropriate. The Album ‘Getz/Gilberto’ is one of the best selling jazz albums of all time – winning 3 Grammy Awards in 1965. It also includes one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history – ‘The Girl From Ipanema’, a Jobim classic sung by João's wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home prior to the recording session. The whole album is a masterful lesson in musical simplicity and sophistication. The musicians all play with an effortless grace that's arguably the fullest expression of bossa nova's dreamy romanticism.

For all its fame and success, it is easily forgotten, how well recorded this album is on top of everything else – irrespective of all the talk about the state of the master tapes, of a possible reverse in the left and right channels as well as a dropout in ‘Ipamena’, dropouts and bass distortion in ‘Corcovado’ and a fair amount of pitch instability in the piano. The quality of the tone colours heard from Getz’s playing is spectacular. His breath control and tone manipulation through reed pressure and articulation is captured in all their subtlety. The whole presentation has a large sound stage and life-like immediacy that you rarely get even with the best recordings.

Recording: A&R Recording Studio, New York City, March 1963
Label: Verve Records

Format: PCM 176,4kHz, 24bit