Walter Gieseking plays the Debussy Preludes

"Only a supremely optimistic or a very vain pianist will attempt to record these Preludes now that Gieseking has done so. Neither the playing nor the recording can be faulted; after all, he has for years been the chief exponent of Debussy's piano music outside France, and I very much doubt whether any French pianist could better these performances."
The Gramophone, 1955

Walter Gieseking's association with the music of Claude Debussy is almost the stuff of legend - can you imagine a review today of any recording beginning in the manner displayed above?

Yet despite many superb recordings made since these 1953/54 recordings were mad in London for EMI, they've remained at the top of many people's list. These new XR remasters bring out more of Gieseking's fabulously fine touch and tone than ever heard before, making them truly essential for any lover of this sublime music.

Furtwängler conducts Wagner's Ring, La Scala, 1950

"Legends when closely investigated do not always live up to their reputations; not so with this Furtwängler-Scala Ring. Snippets heard on ‘pirated' records in wretched sound had not prepared me for the glory of the whole. Indeed I will go as far as to say that this is simply the greatest performance of the whole cycle I have ever heard."
Alan Blyth, Gramophone, 1976

Wednesday, 22nd May was Richard Wagner's 200th birthday, and Pristine Classical has marked it in style with the completion of one of our finest remasterings yet, and one of the greatest operatic recordings of all time: Furtwängler's incredible 1950 Ring, recorded live at La Scala, Milan, some 63 years ago.

The transfers reviewed above by Alan Blyth were later described "as if they were coming from a phone left off the hook in La Scala's lobby". No so today: full, vivid, and with astonishing clarity, they are truly magnificent to hear in Pristine's new 16-bit and 24-bit remasters.