The Decca Sound

Well it does contain what I think are some of Decca's finest recordings (with a few of them still available on vinyl LP from Speakers Corner). I wouldn't though have expected to see relatively modern digital master recordings. For me the true Decca Sound was really from the late 1950s to around the mid 60s when the best ever sounding orchestral recordings were made using simple microphone techniques, simple mixers and valve tape recorders with no noise reduction systems.

The set starts brilliantly with Ansermet's OSR Three Cornered Hat, one of his very greatest recordings with some of the best sound ever to come from Geneva's Victoria Hall (so impressed I have two LP pressings & a CD). The sound from Geneva varied more over the years than from Decca's other locations as electrical engineer Roy Wallace who was taken on to oversee Decca's entry into stereo  experimented with different microphones and microphone techniques. I thought the set might have included Rimsky Korsakov's Antar symphony from Ansermet as this was the first stereo recording made in Europe ever to be issued commercially and dates from Wallace's first experimental sessions there in 1954 and was said to have greatly impressed Ansermet. The sound is very close and immediate but there is some unnaturalness in the upper strings (Decca Legends CD).

Argenta's LSO Espana is perhaps expected but Campoli's Tchaikovsky is more of a forgotten gem. Monteux's LSO Daphnis & Chloe was always said by producer John Culshaw to be one of his personal favorites (like Ansermet with the Falla Monteux had conducted the premiere nearly half a century earlier). When it comes to Elgar it is perhaps surprising that despite the undoubted merits of Boult and Barbirolli it took an octogenarian Americanized Frenchman to give the best performance I have ever heard of the Enigma. The late 1950s revamped LSO, the brightest and brashest orchestra we have had play absolutely superbly for their beloved maestro with a fiery brilliantly exciting performance allied to sound which shows why the Kingsway Hall was the best venue for orchestral recordings this country has had (despite the odd rumble of a tube train in pianissimos on some recordings) with a perfect example of Monteux's use of antiphonal violins. This recording first appeared as one of the RCA Living Stereos made for them by Decca as did Martinon's LSO Borodin second symphony. I was initially taken aback by Martinon's dashing headlong opening speed the first time I heard it but the music can take it. Again stunning sound and that glorious third movement horn melody (Barry Tuckwell?).

Britten & Curzon in Mozart need no recommendation from me whilst the War Requiem again shows off the Kingsway Hall and Kenneth Wilkinson's technical skills. I would though have had Curzon/Szell/LSO in Brahms's first concerto rather than the version included and also Mehta's Los Angeles Alpine Symphony. Peter Maag's Mendelssohn has always been rightly praised for both performance and sound, whilst in one of his earliest VPO recordings Solti drives the orchestra like a whirlwind in the Suppe overtures. They must have wondered what had hit them (his VPO Eroica would have been worth an inclusion). Another omission, rather than the more recent recordings would have been what was the company's most adventurous LP: Boult with the LPO in Humphrey Searle's first symphony coupled with  Matyas Seiber conducting two of his own works again in absolutely amazing sound.

Anyone who doesn't have these early recordings go for it! (I don't know many of the more recent issues as I have a preference for older performances and recordings of the standard repertoire).

Not to mention, if the track listing at www.deccaclassics.com/cat/single?PRODUCT_NR=4783310 is to be believed, you get only part of the fine Ashkenazy/Fistoulari Rach. 3!