Pristine Classical

The finest historic recorded music, remastered to award-winning acclaim

PristineClassical.com was launched in 2005. We specialise in bringing classic historic recordings back to life using cutting edge digital technology and making them available as high quality downloads and on compact disc.

At the helm since day one has been Andrew Rose, music graduate and previously a senior sound engineer at the BBC. Andrew has been instrumental in developing the Pristine sound and style and innovating in the field of audio restoration, and is responsible for remastering the majority of the music on the label. Other major contributors to the Pristine catalogue include the renowned historic audio engineers Mark Obert-Thorn, Ward Marston and Peter Harrison. Together they have built a large and rich catalogue of final music recordings dating as far back as 1899, through the classic “golden age” of 78rpm recordings and on into the era of the LP and the early years of high fidelity stereo. Our catalogue concentrates in the classical field, but we do make occasional diversions into the worlds of classic jazz and early blues.

Our recordings and audio engineering prowess have earned acclaim around the world:

Andrew Rose, that miracle worker among audio-restoration engineers, at his company Pristine Audio…” – The Washington Post

Hooked on the sensation, I spent days browsing Pristine’s archives, relishing the newly robust sound of classic recordings…” – Alex Ross, The New Yorker

His label is called Pristine Classical and its catalogue contains so many marvels that I’ve become — slightly to his embarrassment, I think — the Pristine equivalent of an Apple fanboy” – Damian Thompson, The Spectator

In 2015 five of the top ten historic recordings in The Sunday Times’ annual awards came from Pristine. In 2012 a top Hollywood director insisted on using our remastered transfer of Tchaikovsky in an award-winning film over Sony’s original master tape. Multi-platinum-selling rock guitarists reacted in gushing amazement to our 1930s Robert Johnson blues restorations. Thousands of reviews in magazines, newspapers and on specialist websites around the world have praised our recordings and our Pristine sound.

Elsewhere on this site you can read more about what we do and how we do it, browse our extensive catalogue and listen to our recordings in hundreds of high quality samples. Each release is available for download at the highest possible audio quality, can be streamed from our online player, and can be obtained on made-to-order CDs, shipped worldwide direct from our little village location in rural France.

Happy listening!