These recordings aren’t taken from tape originals or metal stamps, but from items in a private collection. As such, they reveal the wear and distortion often associated with mildly worn copies of analog recordings, as well as the tubby, poorly defined bass and dry, x-ray treble that were features of some Decca 1950s releases. Add to that the fact that these selections were engineered in mono instead of the mellow stereo EMI and Lyrita provided for the conductor’s later re-recordings, and the question naturally arises: why bother with these efforts, at all?

There are a couple of good reasons, in my opinion. For one, not all of Decca’s mono studio efforts were sonically problematic. The bass is strong and well defined in The Perfect Fool here, with good lower strings, brass, and percussion. The upper strings and winds, too, possess a slight but attractive sheen that is a world away from the heavy reverb of many modern CDs, where it is employed as a remedy for personal defects of tone. The overall sound of this group of items is actually better than what I consider Decca’s average for the time, as period re-releases confirm and my own LP collection seconds—though the caveat remains regarding some distortion from worn copies.

More important, Boult’s recordings made during the 1950s continued to show a fine sense of urgency added to his other gifts of sensitive phrasing, structural mastery, and orchestral balance. Those made in the late 1960s and early 1970s have sometimes been faulted for lacking that same urgency, with comparisons between the conductor’s two cycles of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies held up as examples. Without wishing to indulge here in lengthy comparisons, consider The Banks of Green Willow, a work whose premiere Boult gave in 1914 (two years, be it noted, before Butterworth’s death fighting on the Somme). Certainly there’s much to be said for the recording made during the 1970s for Lyrita, with its warm and spacious ambiance; but the anxious trumpet-like motif heard repeatedly on the strings starting around two minutes into the work becomes a sharply faster and more pressing interruption in this 1954 version, launching in turn a more impassioned climax half a minute later. This makes for a more effective contrast with the final section, given its Lark Ascending mood.

I don’t wish to denigrate that later release, once again available on Lyrita 245. Its sound is excellent, despite the analog originals, for one thing. For another, it supplies fine performances led by Boult in several short works of Herbert Howells, including the best performance available of the beautiful Elegy for viola, string quartet, and string orchestra. But Pristine Classical’s examples of a “youthful” Boult, still in his sixties, furnish a corrective to the image provided solely by his late EMI albums. Recommended. You can purchase the CD or download it from www.pristineclassical.com. Barry Brenesal

Bruno Walter: WAGNER Die Walküre on PRISTINE
Departments - Hall of Fame
Written by Henry Fogel  
Monday, 05 April 2010

WAGNER Die Walküre : Act I •  Bruno Walter, cond; Lauritz Melchior ( Siegmund ); Lotte Lehmann ( Sieglinde ); Emanuel List ( Hunding ); Vienna PO • 
PRISTINE AUDIO PACO 024 (monaural: 61:58)

There are a few recordings that almost all serious collectors, listeners, and critics would probably agree belong in a “classical hall of fame,” and this is one of them. In Pristine Audio’s restoration it sounds better than it ever has.

The performance needs little commentary; it has been written about since its initial release back in 1935. Each individual element—soprano, tenor, bass, conductor, orchestra—is sensational. Together, they make for a remarkable whole. Walter’s impassioned, dramatic conducting and the orchestra’s playing with total commitment are certainly central to the impact of the performance. But no less important are the individual performances of the three singers. Because Lauritz Melchior was able to soar over the Wagnerian orchestra, and because he occasionally had rhythmic problems, it is easy to mischaracterize him as a trumpet-like Heldentenor with resonance where others have brains. But that is emphatically not the case, as his many recorded performances prove. In this case, he sings with sensitivity, astonishing variety of color and dynamic shading, and utter conviction and passion. It is impossible for me to imagine a finer Siegmund. The same can be said of Lotte Lehmann’s Sieglinde, as she digs into the part and creates a complete character while pouring out glorious tone. I had forgotten how solid and menacing Emanuel List’s Hunding was, an extremely powerful performance. The sweep of the whole is something we rarely get on any recording, and how they managed it at a time when long works were recorded in four-minute segments is beyond belief.

I compared Pristine’s new restoration to an old Angel “Great Recordings of the Century” LP, and to the best previous CD transfer I knew, Mark Obert-Thorn’s on Naxos. Doing an A–B comparison of the opening, one hears the difference immediately—Naxos’s orchestral sound is darker, warmer; Pristine’s has a bit more bite and clarity. Which is preferable could be as much a matter of the taste of the listener as anything else. But once the voices come in, I find a more lifelike quality to Pristine’s transfer—more presence, more face, to the singing. I compared both in small sections, and then listened from beginning to end to each one. As much as I admire Obert-Thorn’s work, and I do very deeply, I found the new Pristine transfer to have much more impact and to engage me more fully throughout. Pristine makes it available as a CD or a download, and provides minimal notes. Henry Fogel