Posted by Martin Walker on February 22, 2012, 9:52 am 88.75.36.127
What a nasty mess. Michael Gielen is a great conductor, and the 2-CD reissue by Vox of the recordings of 20th C music he made for that company while principal conductor of the Cincinnati SO is part of his legacy, containing superb performances of Berg, Strauss and Lutoslawski. That set seems to be becoming rare in Europe, judging by the Amazon.de/uk/fr price of around 30€, but on Amazon.com it can still be had for a song. One can only hope (against hope) that Vox is not discontinuing their reissues, because it may mean some great performances will get scattered all over the place. My advice is to acquire that Vox set at the cheapest price you can - and add great performances of Tod und Verklärung, Metamorphosen (simply the best I know), the Lulu (almost as good as Scherchen and better sounding) and Lyrische suites, as well as the pieces on the Regis pastiche. I am very suspicious of a remastering that sounds more like MP3 - the Vox reissue is not at all bad for early digital and preferable to any rather homogenised MP3 sound.
I don't know if it's fair to call it a 'nasty mess' (unless you meant the review!), but the sound quality is certainly less than top-notch. On the other hand, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that many listeners - young and old, for different reasons - can't distinguish higher lossy from lossless quality. I've previewed many CDs that have been praised for their quality of sound only to find them distinctly lossy-sounding. I suppose the reviewer who can hear the difference has to balance it against the fact that if it's not pointed out, the CD will still get bought and enjoyed, especially if it's cheap. But it doesn't excuse the labels who seem to be more interested in numbers than quality, and in this particular case, as you say, better to go elsewhere.
No, not the review, Byzantion, that is very judicious and informative. What led me to that perhaps intemperate epithet was the almost random yoking together of disparate sources by Alto and the consequent (probable) disappearance of essential recordings, with insult added to injury in the form of a questionable "remastering", as described by you.
