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Five Highlights of the Year - selected by Andrew Rose
1. Orchestral Music - Horowitz, NBC SO, Toscanini (1945): PASC171: BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 2: 4th mvt. - Allegretto grazioso (8:35)
2. Chamber Music - The Budapest Quartet (1940): PACM065: RAVEL Sting Quartet: 1st mvt. - Allegro moderato (8:18)
3. Keyboard Music - Louis Kentner (1939): PAKM034: BEETHOVEN Hammerklavier Sonata: 4th mvt. - Introduzione - Fuga: Allegro risoluto (13:06)
4. Vocal Music - Toscanini, NBC SO, Soloists & Chorus (1953): PACO034: BEETHOVEN Missa Solemnis: Kyrie - Assai sostenuto (10:36)
5. Jazz & Blues - from Skip James - "Yola My Blues Away" (1931): PABL009: SKIP JAMES Devil Got My Woman (3:14)
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Notes on the five selected recordings
It's always difficult to compile a best-of list, especially as my choice may vary from day to day or week to week. This list picks a single recording from each of five genres of music, and in each I could have picked several more (especially in the crowded Orchestral category). Choices here are for a variety of personal reasons, either as a listener or as a remastering engineer. But each sticks out for me as being particularly worth remembering in 2009. I've excluded our final three releases of the year from my judging as they are still far too fresh in my mind as restoration projects for me to have any real perspective on them. - Andrew Rose, December 2009
BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 2- This recording has been chosen as much for the adventure involved in acquiring the source disc and the excitement and anticipation of hearing it for the first time as for the (excellent) performance and (quite reasonable) sound quality. The entire process, from the discovery that it existed and might be available to me, through a long journey to collect the record, to my return and the revelation of what was in those grooves, will remain with me for a very long time.
RAVEL & DEBUSSY String Quartets - I've just finished reading an excellent biography of the Budapest Quartet, and this recording finds them at their best, with the classic line-up which delighted audiences in the 30s and 40s and returned to do so once more in the 50s and 60s. A rare collaborative effort in the remastering process, the recordings are astonishingly vivid in sound quality and exude the performance quality which confirms the Budapest Quartet as one of the finest of all time, and for fathers of the modern string quartet.
BEETHOVEN Hammerklavier Sonata (plus music by Liszt) - Admittedly from a very small field this year, this recording of Louis Kentner would make my top five of all recordings regardless of categories. It was a delight to work on - some may recall I documented the transfer in real time, as it happened, in one of our weekly newsletters - and the sonic transformation of those 78s wrought by the various restoration processes was beyond any expectation I had entertained. To top it all, the performance is really wonderful!
BEETHOVEN Missa Solemnis - This is one of those instances where personal musical taste is perhaps the overriding factor in a very strong field. This year has seen three Verdi operas from Toscanini, as well as a recording of Louis Ganne's rare Les Saltimbanques and at the very end of the year (and thus ruled out of the judging here) Lotte Lehmann's legendary 1933 recording of Der Rosenkavalier. But of all of these treasures, the recording I'll be listening to the most is likely to be this one.
SKIP JAMES Yola My Blues Away - A very tight decision here between three excellent contenders - Blind Blakes' superb "ragtime" guitar picking is astonishing; Blind Willie McTell's 12-string guitar blues has been a long-time favourite of mine. But it was my discovery of the often strange and quite unique musical world of Skip James captured on these rather lo-fi recordings which takes the prize. A real challenge for the restorer, as are all recordings from the Paramount Record Company, I'm really proud of what I was able to do to make the sublime "young" 1931 Skip James recordings more accessible.
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