A DIFFERENT KIND OF MUSIC

Independent labels are the soul and heart of the music industry, in many ways the pioneers, the original risk-takers. while big labels such as Warner Brothers and Atlantic are in the business of making hits (finding artists and musical styles that will appeal to the biggest audience), independent labels have quietly gone about the task of discovering and recording new talent and new musical genres. More often than not, the aim is quality-- the artistry and craftsmanship of marrying true musical talent with true recording and engineering talent. Never mind that most of these recordings are not big sellers. More than a few are, in fact, eventually recognized as leading-edge material, catapulting either the musicians or the genre of music into mainstream awareness. Major labels often clamor after these artists and sounds once they've proven themselves on the independents' cutting ground.

Sidney Stevens, High Performance Review Vol.8 No.

New & Upcoming Releases:
Updated 04/30/2009

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New Feature!
BROWSE CONDUCTORS

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Historical Classical: Conductors
Featuring the conducting of FurtwÄngler, Knappertsbusch, Mitropoulos and Toscanini and more.

Historical Classical: Instrumentalists, Vocalists and Opera Presenting recordings from the past of historical importance, lovingly restored. Featuring the pianism of Cortot, Schnabel, Michelangeli and Clara Haskil, the violins of Kreisler, Szigeti, Menhuin and Milstein, the voices of Flagstad and BjÖrling and more.

Digital Classical Recordings
Listed Alphabetically: Modern high-fidelity recordings of standard as well as modern repertoire by some of today's greatest artists. With an emphasis on contemporary American music, and featuring Ursula Oppens, the Mirecourt Trio, Igor Kipnis, and the Composers' Quartet.

Jazz/Pop/World Music —
With an emphasis on the adventurous and the modern. Presenting the cream of America's scene in such musicians as Braxton, Cyrille, Hemphill, Crispell and Pullen, along with major European improvisors like Brozmann, Graewe, Guy, and Tasarov. Included also are recordings of great historical significance by greats such as Ellington, Basie, Kenton, Art Tatum and Nat Cole, as well as Tibetan Buddhist monks from Drepung Loseling Monastery and Koto master Elizabeth Falconer.

Pristine Audio & Natural Sound

Tahra Classical Recordings —Historical recordings from France, mostly long-unavailable, edited by Dr. Myriam Scherchen, daughter of the great conductor Hermann Scherchen.

Collector Alert —Very low stock items, soon to be Out of Print.

Interview —Music & Arts Founder, Frederick J. Maroth

Spotlight —Engineer Maggi Payne

Hall of Shame —What you might want to know about Pirate Record Companies

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Archive Classics Offers Podcasts of Historic Performances from Biddulph, APR, Music & Arts, Romophone, and Pristine Audio

Our colleague Andrew Rose writes: "I'm delighted to bring news of a new weekly online podcast/radio show, long in the planning and finally launched in early April, produced by Archive Classics, the people behind BBC Radio 3's CD Masters and much more, and presented by acclaimed writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson, which I'm sure many will want to know about." Here is the link to the site:

http://www.archiveclassics.com/podcast.asp

Anyone who has ever tried to track down outstanding classical recordings in cyberspace will surely welcome the launch of a new online service for music-lovers. Archive Classics aims to put worldwide web users directly in touch with great performances from the past and connect collectors of historical recordings with an exceptional resource of downloadable recorded treasures.

Archive Classics launched on 3rd April 2009 with the first in a weekly series of hour-long podcasts, available for free download to anyone visiting the website. Each programme is presented by Stephen Johnson, whose authoritative knowledge and natural ability to inform and entertain have drawn critical acclaim to his BBC Radio 3 series Discovering Music and other regular broadcasts for BBC Radios 3, 4 and World Service. Stephen is set to introduce personal selections from classical archives furnished by the best among labels devoted to historical recordings. He will guide listeners with observations about performers and their approach to interpretation, recall essential anecdotes and serve up a menu of movements from longer works and full versions of splendid shorter compositions.

In addition to the free podcast, Archive Classics is offering an extended 90-minute version to subscribers for a monthly fee of £5.99 (about US $8.80). This premium podcast is available in high quality audio and contains a complete weekly Featured Recording, which can also be downloaded and stored as a high quality 320 Kbps MP3 file as part of the subscription deal, as well as bonus tracks not featured on the free podcast.

Wendy Thompson, Executive Director of Classic Arts, explains that Archive Classics was conceived as an alternative to those download music websites light on informed consumer guidance. "So many sites have a large range of music but very little editorial content. It can be very difficult for people who are looking to discover great recordings from the past to know where to begin."

"There is an audience out there that appreciates an emphasis on historical recordings and labels," she recalls. "With Archive Classics, we have established partnerships with leading independent labels to offer people something special. Each free podcast will be like a radio programme, and we're hoping to generate a lot of enthusiasm among subscribers and those who listen to the free podcast. We also want to offer recordings that are not otherwise commercially available, things that have simply dropped out of the catalogue. And the subscription deal, offering four high-quality downloads a month, is fantastic value for money from a collector's point of view."

Archive Classics' partner labels include Pristine Audio, internationally recognised for the audio quality of its sound restorations; Biddulph Recordings, with its fine chamber music and orchestral catalogue; the US-based Music & Arts imprint; Romophone, which specialises in vocal music; and piano specialists APR. Around 4,000 recordings have already been digitised for Archive Classics, including essential masterworks conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Mengelberg, and peerless chamber music interpretations by Alfred Cortot, Walter Gieseking, Artur Schnabel and Joseph Szigeti. The first round of Archive Classics Featured Recordings – legendary performances of Beethoven's five piano concertos – makes a bold statement about the quality of the enterprise as a whole.

Latest Music & Arts deletions resurrected in superb sound by Andrew Rose on Pristine Audio:

MUSIC AND ARTS - CD-263 - WAGNER: KIRSTEN FLAGSTAD'S NEW YORK FAREWELL CONCERT. Kirsten Flagstad, soprano. Symphony of the Air (formerly NBC Symphony Orchestra) conducted by Edwin McArthur. Carnegie Hall, 22nd March, 1955. CD first issued by Music and Arts, 1987. XR remastering by Andrew Rose, September 2008. Total duration: 70:49. Long out of print, and sounding even better than before!

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Vocal/MA263.php

'Schläfst du Gast' and 'du bist der Lenz' from Die Walküre, Act 1
Five Wesendonck Lieder
Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
Brünnhilde's Immolation from Die Götterdämmerung

Kirsten Flagstad was without doubt one of the great Wagnerians. This Music and Arts reissue is a captures her brilliantly as she reprises a number of roles in her 1955 New York Farewell concert.

Backed by the newly-founded Symphony of the Air, which rose swiftly from the ashes of the disbanded NBC Symphony Orchestra, this is such a superb performance that even those who normally steer clear of Wagner will surely find something to love here. Chosen by Music and Arts from their back-catalogue of out of print best-sellers for reissue here, we've dusted off the already good sound quality and given it a stunning new XR shine.

And the addition of our new Ambient Stereo processing fills out the sound and space of Carnegie Hall to quite marvelous effect!

Notes on the restoration:
This is an excellent example of taking a good fifties recording and making significant improvements to it using the latest technology. First up was a re-equalisation to curtail the harsh upper-midrange and treble frequencies and bring out the warmth of the lower end - a direct comparison of this reissue to the original does reveal a certain 'telephonic' quality due to the tonal imbalance in the recording.

Simply doing this equalisation helped reduce the tape hiss, something which was further reduced by the latest high quality digital noise reduction processing. It was also possible to repair some mild tape dropout. The addition of Ambient Stereo, only available here on FLAC download, really puts the icing on the cake of what is a truly beautiful recording.
-Andrew Rose, Pristine Classical

New Ambient Stereo FLAC release today:

MUSIC AND ARTS - CD-1035 - FURTWÄNGLER AT COVENT GARDEN, 1937: EXCERPTS FROM DIE WALKÜRE AND GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG. From the performance of 26 May 1937, Die Walküre: Act III complete with Kirsten Flagstad (Brünnhilde), Maria Müller (Sieglinde), Elsa Stenning (Helmwige), Mae Graven (Gerhilde), Thelma Bardsley (Ortlinde), Linda Seymour (Waltruate), Edith Coates (Siegrune), Evelyn Arden, Rossweise), Gladys Garside (Grimgerde), Gladys Ripley (Schwertleite), Rudolf Bockelmann (Wotan), and London Philharmonic.

From the performance of 1 June 1937, excerpts from the Götterdämmerung with Kirsten Flagstad (Brünnhilde), Maria Nezadal (Gutrune), Kerstin Thorborg (Waltraute), Lauritz Melchior (Siegfried), Herbert Janssen (Gunther), Ludwig Weber (Hagen), Covent Garden Chorus, and London Philharmonic. Live performances at Covent Garden, London, 26 May and 1 June 1937

CD first issued by Music and Arts, 1998. Additional XR remastering by Andrew Rose, October 2008. Total duration: 02:35

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Vocal/MA1035.php

For all Music and Arts releases on Pristine Audio: http://www.pristineaudiodirect.com/MusicArts.html