FAURÉ Chamber Music (1951-55) - PABX019

Presenting Gabriel Fauré at his very finest

First in a Fauré series remastered by Peter Harrison

In Summer, 1953, the Nixa Record Company issued two LPs of Fauré's chamber music and this re-release has been sourced from an original pressing of one of those two discs (the other is intended for next month's release).

Copies of the discs are rare, so the restorer has to work from what he has. Like many such LPs, the pressing quality is indifferent and the disc itself badly worn in places (by the 8 gram 'lightweight' pickups of the time!) and with a huge amount of clicking and swishing which needed considerable work to minimise.

Some residue may still be heard on critical listening; but I think that the artistic performances justify the re-release and I'd urge anyone who isn't familiar with these musical by-ways to give them a try: they're pieces that are well worth getting to know.

- PMH

The Guilet Quartet's Fauré Chamber Music

XR-Remastered for finest sound quality

Copies of the discs are rare, so the restorer has to work from what he has. Like many such LPs, the pressing quality is indifferent and the disc itself badly worn in places (by the 8 gram 'lightweight' pickups of the time!) and with a huge amount of clicking and swishing which needed considerable work to minimise.

Some residue may still be heard on critical listening; but I think that the artistic performances justify the re-release and I'd urge anyone who isn't familiar with these musical by-ways to give them a try: they're pieces that are well worth getting to know

Peter Harrison

Ray Lev joins the Pascals for Fauré's Piano Quintet

XR-Remastered for finest sound quality

For example, the most obvious fault, not remarked on at the time, was a strong hum: not just 50Hz or 60Hz, but both! (Either is all too common, but both? - it's the first time I've encountered this. Not mentioned in the reviews.)

After double de-humming and heavy doses of the usual restoration medicine (end of side 1 particularly bad), the underlying recording was revealed. In all their horror were nasty shrieky strings and a piano swathed in cotton-wool and apparently in a different studio. Minor miracles were achieved jointly by Andrew Rose and self to resolve this and the result, after many, many hours of work and a final touch of Ambient Stereo, is what you'll hear here. Amazingly a very nice performance has finally been revealed, perhaps for the first time since it left the studio!

Peter M Harrison

The Robert Masters Piano Quartet plays Fauré

XR-Remastered for finest sound quality

A common delusion is that the LP era rationalised the various playback equalisations and magically all the record companies had adopted the RIAA standard: end of problem. Not so. There were five years of LP production before RIAA was established and during that time - as with 78s - anything goes. And anything went. Pick up an early Decca FFRR LP and ask: what equalisation should be used to replay it correctly? - and the answer, amazingly, is one of three possibles: Early FFRR (Pre '53), FFRR ('53-'55), RIAA ('56 onwards). And these periods overlapped. And that's for a major label. (I hope to return to the subject of Decca eq in a later note.)

Move now to a small label, possibly using more than one generic cutting firm each with different setups; add in the "shared masters" comment we mentioned above from Quad; and the question of 'correct' playback equalisation becomes impossible to answer.

In restoring the four LPs of Fauré's chamber music this problem was particularly acute. 'A Polymusic recording' says the label on the Nixa disc. What eq did Nixa use? No idea. Was this LP pressed from a shared master disc or a copytape master from Polymusic? Scratches in the runout area of the disc suggest the former - in which case the question becomes: what eq did Polymusic use? Even less idea. In such cases the restoration engineer is left with having to use two sensitive but fallible tools - his ears - together with experience, and guesswork. And all that could be said is: hope you like the result.

At least, that was the situation until a couple of years ago and the development of such techniques as Andrew Rose's XR process which - to over-simplify enormously - helps resolve equalisation problems throughout the recording chain by reference to modern recordings of undoubted quality. Again however, and this must be stressed, it is only another tool: its use has to be carefully judged, and it mustn't be abused. But hopefully we are now able to present you with restorations from the early LP period that are, to adapt Peter Walker's slogan for Quad: "a bit closer to the original sound".

Peter M Harrison