Brahms Violin Concerto In D, David Oistrakh - George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra (Corrected Speed Version)
Genre: Classical
Vendor: High Definition Tape Transfers
Description:
Title: Brahms Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
Artist(s): David Oistrakh, violin
George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra
Recording Info: Recorded by EMI May 1969
Producer – Peter Andry
Engineer – Carson Taylor
Transferred from a 15ips 2-track tape
This is a corrected version of the Oistrakh / Szell /Cleveland Brahms Violin Concerto that we released a couple of months ago. Former Stereophile columnist and classical-music record producer John Marks let us know that that he had earlier established that, on all but the earliest (pre-1973) releases of this title, the speed was off (fast and sharp). The first version we sent out had Concert "A" higher than 448Hz. Working with John, we corrected that down to 440Hz, entirely within the analog domain.
For the whole story, read his Stereophile article here.
A Word From John Marks:
Back in my student days, if I liked someone and they liked a particular LP they had heard at my place, often times I would just give them the LP to keep. I would then buy a replacement on my next (usually weekly) LP shopping trip.
Unfortunately, at the time I did not realize that subsequent LP pressings often were not of as good quality as those I had given away. Oops. I think that is the reason that I failed to hear that EMI’s “Abbey Road Signature Series” SACD remastering of David Oistrakh’s 1969 Brahms Violin Concerto with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra was sharp in pitch and too fast in playing time.
It is likely that the replacement LP I bought when I was living in Nashville in the late 1970s (and have kept since then) had that same pitch and speed error. Therefore, I did not hear the SACD as being different. (It is possible—but not a certainty—that the LP I gave away in Nashville was true in pitch and speed, because I had bought it, in Providence, in the early 1970s. The log in the EMI tape box indicates that the master-tape substitution took place in 1973.)
The EMI SACD was significantly off in pitch (Concert “A” at 445.6Hz rather than 440Hz). But even more significant from a musical point of view was the rushed performance. The “fast and sharp” LPs and the SACD remastering finish playing the first movement about 20 seconds sooner than Oistrakh had played it in real life. That is a whomping big difference in terms of musical expression. For that reason I believed (and still believe) that I had no choice but to retract the Stereophile R2D4 award I had given to the SACD, once a reader had pointed out the likelihood of a speed error to me (which I subsequently independently confirmed).
Therefore, it is with both great pleasure and great relief that I congratulate Bob Witrak of High Definition Tape Transfers for setting this mistake right. Bob was willing to go through a process of successive approximation by which, working together, we were able to arrive at a tape transfer with accurate pitch and speed, entirely within the analog domain.
To restate, the corrected version is a new high-resolution digital transfer from a set of analog tapes running at the proper speed to provide the proper pitch (and therefore the proper running time). The corrected version is not the result of applying a digital plug-in.
On this corrected transfer, “King” David Oistrakh’s warm tone and supremely musical phrasing now sound like musicianship really worth getting excited about.
1. Allegro Non Troppo 22:35
2. Adagio 9:41
3. Allegro Giocoso 8:32
Total Time: 40:48
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