by Oliver Amnuayphol
Not a lot of vinyl news this week, but still some golden nuggets to report on: Classic Records just announced two fabulous new vinyl releases, the first of which being the highly sought after The Royal Ballet Gala Performances. Recorded in 1957 at Kingsway Hall, Royal Ballet features Ernest Ansermet conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra in one their finest performances ever recorded. Many classical-luvin' audiophiles consider this to be one of Decca's finest recordings, and now Classic Records has reissued Ballet on their wondrous 200 gram, QUIEX-SVP Clarity vinyl formulation--and on 9 45-rpm discs no less. Sure, there's a non-45 rpm version of this album available as well, but if you love this music and treasure superb-sounding classical music from the golden age of LP recordings, you'll delight at all the musical and sonic riches this 9-disc set has to offer. Look for this set to be available October 16th at around $120.
Also coming soon from Classic Records is the complete cycle of Beethoven Symphonies with Josef Krips
conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. That's right--all nine glorious Beethoven symphonies in one set! Originally issued in 1959 by Everest Records, the Krips Beethoven cycle is one in a series of Everest gems originally recorded onto 35mm master tape; Bert Whyte was at the helm of the original sessions and did a fine job of capturing all of Walthamstow Assembly Hall's rich reverberant decay, sense of scale and natural tonal balance. Rest assured Classic is coaxing as much sonic goodness as possible from this one: the set will comprise 10 200-gram Quiex-SVP Clarity vinyl LPs with mastering at Bernie Grundman. Look for the set to be available around Oct. 20th, $249 MSRP.
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