"I find a heartening flexibility in the opening, everywhere taste, imagination, quality worth savouring. I find the recording kind to needles and to the ear, and the reading grateful to the spirit. In all, a product much to my liking" - The Gramophone, July 1940

This week's release brings together two recordings Sir Thomas Beecham made with his London Philharmonic Orchestra as the 1930s moved into the 1940s of music by Tchakovsky - his Fifth Symphony and Francesca da Rimini (review excerpt above) - with the only surviving record of his conducting of the Sixth, "Pathétique" Symphony, in the form of two abridged movements recorded way back in 1915 with his Beecham Symphony Orchestra.

Mark Obert-Thorn brings his remastering brilliance to bear across all of these recordings and, despite the gulf in sound quality between the earlier and later recordings, all are definitely worth your time and ears. Beecham conjures up plenty of fire in this repertoire, along with a modicum of targeted string portamenti and no little flexibility of tempi.

With Puccini's La Bohème we continue our classic opera recordings series with another brilliant recording featuring Jussi Björling, this time starring alongside Victoria de los Angeles and under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham.

The two lead soloists had recorded together previously, and appeared together on stage, but never in these roles. Björling's Rodolfo was his most frequent and longest-lasting stage role, and as usual he's magnificent here. De los Angeles is the perfect Mimi alongside Björling, whilst Beecham brings decades of experience and his direct knowledge of Puccini, with whom he'd discussed the opera, to bear in this his sole recording with Björling.

XR remastering coupled with Ambient Stereo and a modicum of real opera-house reverberation gives a sound is much more comfortable and natural, allowing you to concentrate fully on enjoying Puccini's brilliant music and the artists' fabulous performances.

This week sees the first release in a, exciting new partnership between Pristine and the BrüderBuschArchiv at the Max Reger Institute in Germany. We've been working in conjunction with Dr. Jürgen Schaarwächter at the Institute to produce this first excellent 2-CD album of music by Brahms, conducted by Fritz Busch and recorded live and in studio conditions between 1942 and 1950.

It begins with a 1942 radio broadcast recording with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York of the Symphony No. 1 - a very powerful reading though alas not in high fidelity sound - before we enter the more high fidelity era of 1950 for live recordings of the Tragic Overture and Nänie with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

The second of two discs is given over entirely to two further symphonies: the Symphony No. 2 was recorded for commercial release, again with the Danish orchestra, over two days in Copenhagen in 1947. It is followed by a live recording in particularly fine sound quality from 1950 of the Symphony No. 4 with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.