Pristine Audio Digital Music Collection

Pristine Audio’s ‘Digital Music Collection’ (PADMC) – containing all the company’s recordings on a single USB drive – is the stuff of dreams, certainly for those of us who love to roam the vast terrain of historical recordings or are running out of storage space. There are two ports on the neat, solidly constructed drive provided, a traditional USB-A and a newer USB-C, one on either end of the unit. Both are super-high-speed USB 3.2 ports, capable of fast transfers when connected to suitable equipment. To put it simply, I use an iMac desktop computer kitted out with the usual rear-placed USB ports. You’ll need a media player to facilitate hearing groups of tracks at a single stretch – whether a symphony, a concerto, quartet, sonata or a complete opera. If you don’t have one installed, fear not: you can very easily download a media player free from the internet (mine is VLC – looks like a traffic cone). Then, basically, you’re all set to go.

You can purchase the Collection (some 1175 full albums, stretching across nearly 18,000 tracks) either as an MP3 or a FLAC USB. The former denotes compression and is compatible with just about any player, and it takes up less file space. FLAC is a lossless audio compression system that retains full quality from the original master file. Some readers may draw the reasonable conclusion that FLAC is wasted on old recordings, which in some cases is true, though beam up violinist Bronisπaw Huberman’s 1929 Columbia recording of Zarzycki’s flamboyant Mazurka – which sounds via this FLAC PADMC as if it was recorded yesterday (or as near as) – and you have the answer. Purchasers also have the option to subscribe to an updates service, which means either regularly downloading or receiving a monthly update on DVD-R disc.

The curated collection is broken down into the categories Blues, Chamber Music, Compilations, Jazz, Keyboard Music, Orchestral Music and Vocal Music, with cover-artwork jpg files also provided. Transfers have been effected either by Pristine’s chief Andrew Rose or, for many of the 78rpm-based issues, Mark Obert-Thorn. The refurbishments that I’ve heard (over the years) are of a minimum high quality, but there were quite a few that I hadn’t encountered before my experience with PADMC. Toscanini’s broadcast recording of Roy Harris’s Yosemite-style Third Symphony, for example, which for a sense of scenic realism quite dwarfs previous transfers that I’ve sampled. Also his rare 1943 broadcast version of the Overture and Venusberg Music from Wagner’s Tannhäuser, which strikes lightning like none other in my experience, even though the radio announcer doesn’t make his exit quite soon enough (there’s a second or two overlap with the beginning of the Overture).

Elgar’s Piano Quintet with Ethel Hobday and the Spencer Dyke Quartet, a National Gramophone Society recording, is also available online but turn to Pristine’s transfer – one of a number of NGS recordings included – and there’s no comparison. It’s quieter and warmer, with no loss of definition. Among recordings new to me were Otto Klemperer’s 1962 broadcasts with the Philadelphia Orchestra that include a Mozart G minor (No 40) which for clarity, strength, directness and orchestral polish is fairly unique. Also from Philadelphia in the same year, exceptional Klemperer performances of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7, Brahms’s Third Symphony and Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto. And there are numerous commercial recordings that haven’t otherwise been reissued on CD – or if they have, only from obscure sources. Selmar Meyrowitz’s wildfire 1935 Paris Philharmonic recording of Liszt’s Faust Symphony (the first ever made) is well worth hearing, as are a whole host of Scarlatti keyboard sonatas played on the harpsichord by Fernando Valenti – the most Landowska-like Scarlatti since her 78s from the 1930s and ’40s. True, there are more of them, many more, than Pristine has so far given us (the Westminster LPs, which gravitated from mono to stereo as technology advanced, exceeded the 20 mark). Numerous complete operas are available on the stick, including a complete Met Ring from 1961/62 under Erich Leinsdorf with Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, George London and Hans Hopf. Add ‘extras and lucky dips’ – or, as Pristine puts it, ‘a mish-mash of recordings which never made it on to the label officially but could well be of interest to those willing to trawl through and try them out’ – and you have the basis of, with respect, a nerd’s paradise (I count myself a proud member of the nerd community), but without the risks involved when relying on fragile discs, whether black or silver, or of falling offline.

A quick online read-through of Pristine’s catalogue at pristineclassical.com will tell you what you’ll be getting for your money. As to the cost itself, it depends where you’re coming from. Calculated at a rate ‘per album’ or ‘per track’, a price of around £1000 is obscenely inexpensive. Yes, it’s a sizeable sum to lay out at one shot, but given the quality – and quantity – of what’s on offer, it has to be one of the record bargains of the century. Might other labels follow suit? Could the notion of a single one-off payment for a tiny gizmo crammed full of music and/or performers we’re itching to explore, that we can take with us anywhere we go, prove too attractive to resist? Chances are it will.

- Rob Cowan, Gramophone magazine, Awards Issue 2024