In this week's newsletter:

• A Concert of English Music - a superb 1945 broadcast featuring Mitch Miller (oboe) and Bernard Herrmann
  
• Bruckner 7 - Horenstein & the Berlin Phil.: "One of the finest-sounding recordings of its era" - Mark Obert-Thorn
  
• PADA Exclusives - Mengelberg conducts Bach and Mozart with the Concertgebouw
  
• MusicWeb International Review: Richard Strauss conducts Richard Strauss 
• Pristine's 2008 Best Sellers - Looking back to our top 5 downloads of last year
  

Editorial - Catalogues and collections in the Digital Age

A few years ago I took a day trip to London - no mean feat from a small village in the south west of France - for the annual Gramophone Awards ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, where I was wined an dined and watched an array of stars and record company executives picking up their gongs. All the talk that year was of how the coming download revolution and the advent of the MP3 would 'save' the classical music industry, at a time when many people in the business were either snooty, dismissive or positively hostile toward the idea.

The main presentation of the day included much about the new technology, and the one thing which stuck in my mind was the endless repetition of the word 'meta-data', and how vitally important this was to us all. I'm sure it left 95% of the audience entirely baffled - what was this mysterious new thing that would revive classical music around the world?

What the this mysterious term actually meant was simply the 'tagging' of digital files - adding information to each music download file about the name of a track, its performer, the album name, year, composer, musical genre and so on. It's something which has evolved as formats have evolved - there are a variety of standards of tagging for MP3s, for example, which allow differing amounts of information to be stored. This may be a simple (very) short piece of text which includes the title and artist, or may include the entire libretto of an opera in multiple languages, complete with a string of images and any number of other bits of information. All of this can be encoded in the came file as the music, and with the right player it can all be read back and displayed on screen when you're listening to that music.

Similarly, FLAC files can be tagged, as can a lot of other digital music formats, and again it's been an evolutionary process - the most recent addition I know of came a year or two ago with the addition of picture files to the protocol.

To a certain extent this can all appear to be very academic. If you're doing most of your listening on CD, with the MP3 or FLAC download being merely a method of acquisition prior to recording to disc, it's pretty much irrelevant. OK, so maybe you listen to the odd track or fifteen on your computer or iPod, but in the living room or car it's perhaps not hugely important - and the fact that all of this tagging has evolved to serve the pop and rock industry, with the barest nod to classical music seems neither here nor there.

But what happens when you box up all your CDs, records and tapes, store them away in the attic, and go entirely over to a hard-drive-based digital audio and video system, as I'm in the process of doing right now? Suddenly all that "meta-data" becomes very important indeed.

Right now my living room system claims to have 43490 tracks stored and available for listening. That's 3483 hours, 47 minutes and 42 seconds of music. A display of all of this, 15 tracks to a page, runs to 2900 pages. The ability to hunt through this to find what I want - as well as to be able to browse through it in a sane manner - soon becomes a major headache.

If this were a physical library it would be difficult. One of Pristine Classical's most regular customers has, in addition to his download collection, over 90,000 CDs. One would imagine hell have a pretty comprehensive disc cataloguing system in place - but int he physical world one can also rely on scanning across a shelf, reading CD spine listings, to see what's on each disc. As soon as that physical entity disappears into a hard drive you lose that option, and need a reliable and powerful virtual equivalent.

Which is where you suddenly come up against the complete lack of standards within the world of digital downloads. It's perfectly clear why MP3 and FLAC tags are a complete hotchpotch of inconsistently applied "rules" - the vast majority of those who've done the tagging never use their tags as a way of sorting, accessing or searching their own music collections. As long as the data's there somewhere it's all right, isn't it? Well, no, in the long run it isn't.

The problem with the current approach is you might get "Beethoven" listed as artist, album title, track title, conductor, composer and so on. Well there are a number of categories he's not going to apply to there! But where many music replay systems don't offer searching or listing of most of the possible tags (the Composer tag being a particular bugbear of mine), record companies and individuals need to come up with a system which allows users to find their Beethoven recordings, and right now there isn't a single agreed way of doing this. I have albums downloaded from one well-known online store where both the file naming and the tagging protocols change from one track to another on a single disc or between the movements of a single work.

I have to hold my own hands up here and make an admission of guilt - some of our older downloads are appallingly tagged! But we're getting better, especially now I'm actively using them and being frustrated by them! There's also some excellent tagging software out there to help - I've been using TagTuner lately, which has been more than worth the $29 I paid for it, simply for its ability to recognise an album of tracks saved in a folder and download all the relevant information, often with cover art, and apply it to the files in a single click, not to mention its ability to re-name and number tracks from their file titles.

Meanwhile our own online indexing continues slowly to evolve to cope with an ever-growing catalogue. If you click on our Master Music Index link today you'll discover five different ways to find recordings on our site, and we've recently reorganised our text links so that there's a page for each letter of the alphabet with lists ordered by composer and by performer. It should all make it quicker and easier to browse the site, and we'll carry on looking for other ways to help you find your way around.

We also have a new Beginner's Guide to Downloads, which aims to explain all the complexities of downloads in an accessible language and comes with a handy printable version to keep by your computer for reference.

Finally, I'm working on a beginners guide to XBMC music playback, which we'll have online very soon.

There's a lot to take in when you move from tangible media like records and CDs into the almost invisible world of downloads and hard drive storage - I just hope we can make it as painless as possible! Once you've taken the first steps you'll you won't want to return. Meanwhile, right now I'm considering how best to adapt my living room's CD storage racks for yet another innovative media storage technology: the book.

Andrew Rose, Pristine Audio

Also of interest today:

• Archive Classics - excellent weekly online radio programme dedicated to historic recordings. This week, they say:
  
  "Archive Classics tx 27/11/2009

  The Chopin focus continues this week with the great Piano Sonata No.3 in B minor as our Featured Recording.  It’s played by the brilliant Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti (1917 – 1950), a much-loved musician whose life, like Chopin’s, was tragically curtailed by illness. Lipatti’s recordings are prized for their elegant sensibility and refinement, as well as their virtuosity. His recording of Chopin’s B minor Sonata dates from 1947. 
  
  Only a short extract  is available on the free podcast: subscribers can access the complete work.
  
  Another wizard of the keyboard opens this week’s podcast – Sviatoslav Richter playing Schumann’s Toccata in C major Op.7, in a live recording from February 1958, made at the Budapest Academy of Music. And Stephen Johnson continues with another toccata of a very different kind – an orchestral arrangement by Hans Kindler of a toccata by the  early 17th-century Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi. This 1940 recording by the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC, conducted by Kindler, is far from `authentic’, but is nevertheless fascinating.
  
  As well as Chopin, there’s music by another Polish composer – the violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski (1835-80) His Second Violin Concerto in D minor is widely considered to be his finest work, written while he was living in St Petersburg where he became professor of violin at the newly-established Conservatory. His colleague Anton Rubinstein called him `without doubt the greatest violinist of his age’. This 1963 recording of a radio broadcast is played by Michel Schwalbe with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, conducted by Stanislaw Skrowczewski.
  
  Bonus tracks for subscribers only:

  • Another short piece by Wieniawski – his arrangement for violin and piano of the 10th movement of Gounod’s `Mephisto Variations’.  This rare early recording by the Czech violinist Jan Kubelik dates from 1905.

  • Finally, a 1952 recording of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No.2 in G minor, played by the Hungarian-born cellist Janos Starker, with pianist Abba Bogin."

  
  

Mitch Miller, Oboe
The Columbia Broadcasting Symphony 
conducted by Bernard Herrmann
Recorded 1945

A CBS live radio broadcast, 9th September 1945, introduced by Sidney Berry, from the archive of Edward Johnson
Transfers and XR remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, November 2009
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Bernard Herrmann

Total duration: 75:50 
©2009 Pristine Audio.

For more download and CD options, see our website

The FLAC downloads:

A fabulous Falstaff; Mitch Miller shines in Vaughan Williams

Superb previously unissued live broadcast recording from Anglophile Herrmann

• HANDEL Water Music Suite (arr. Harty)
  
• VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Concerto for Oboe and Strings in A minor
• ELGAR Falstaff, Op. 68
  
  CBS Broadcast, Sunday 9th September 1945
  
  Introduced by Sidney Berry
  
  Brief extract from the news read by Bern Bennett
  

New release today:

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 7 in E major
Pristine Audio PASC 203

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Jascha Horenstein
Recorded in 1928

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Jascha Horenstein

Total duration: 58:58 
©2009 Pristine Audio

For more download and CD options, see our website

The downloads:

The first electrical recording of Bruckner's 7th Symphony

"One of the finest-sounding recordings of its era" - Mark Obert-Thorn

 

 

• Bruckner Symphony No. 7 in E
  
  1st mvt. - Allegro moderato (17:21)
  (Matrices: 964 bm, 965 bm, 966 ½ bm, 967 bm)
  
  2nd mvt. - Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam (21:44)
  (Matrices: 1270 bm, 1271 bm, 1272 bm, 1273 bm, 1274 ½ bm)
  
  3rd mvt. - Scherzo: Sehr schnell; Trio; Etwas langsamer (9:17)
  (Matrices: 1275 ½ bm, 1330 ½ bm, 1275 ½ bm)
  
  4th mvt. - Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell (10:36)
  (Matrices: 1331 ¾ bm, 1332 ½ bm, 1333 ½ bm)
  
  Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
  conductor Jascha Horenstein
  First issued on Grammophon/Polydor 66802 through 66808
  
  

"Grammophon have some interesting records not duplicated in the Decca catalogue. There is Bruckner's Seventh Symphony for those who like the rather diffuse eloquence of this composer. English conductors and orchestras treat us badly over Bruckner: they are too gentle with him. Few could resist him as he is played in Germany, where his love of noise and his sentimentality are given full play. Surprisingly enough, however, Bruckner gets away with it, as owners of these records (Grammophon 66802LM-66808LM) will see. The symphony is played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein."

from "Some Interesting German Records", The Gramophone, December 1935

 

When Mark Obert-Thorn writes "Having transferred many orchestral discs from the late 1920s, I found it to be one of the finest-sounding recordings of its era" you know you're in for something special.

This first electrical recording of Bruckner's 7th Symphony, with the Berlin Philharmonic under a young Jascha Horenstein certainly lives up to its promise. Brilliantly recording, it's a performance to cherish and savour.

A few years later, The Gramophone wrote about it, "Few could resist[Bruckner] as he is played in Germany, where his love of noise and his sentimentality are given full play. Surprisingly enough, however, Bruckner gets away with it, as owners of these records will see...". 

It's very hard to disagree with their recommendation!

Download listening sample:   (1st mvt, long excerpt, 224kbps mono)

Notes on the recordings:

There are two particularly remarkable things about this Bruckner Seventh. The first is that Grammophon/Polydor entrusted this première electrical recording of a complete Bruckner symphony to the 30-year-old Jascha Horenstein. At a time when that label was also making records with Furtwängler, Fried (who had made the first, acoustic, recording of the work several years earlier), Klemperer (who had recorded the Adagio acoustically), Pfitzner, Kleiber, and Richard Strauss, this was high praise, indeed, and a vote of confidence in the young maestro’s future career.

The second remarkable feature is the recorded sound that the original engineers were able to capture. Having transferred many orchestral discs from the late 1920s, I found it to be one of the finest-sounding recordings of its era. This is greatly aided by the quiet surfaces of the German Polydor pressings used for this transfer.

As the matrix numbers indicate, this was recorded over three separate sessions: the first movement in one session, the second movement and the first part of the Scherzo in the second, and the Scherzo’s Trio and the Finale in the third. Each session was recorded at a different speed, with the first two being well above the “standard” 78.26 rpm and the last being below it. The pitches have all been corrected here.

Like some other recordings of the 78 rpm period which featured A – B – A movements spread over three sides (the Scherzo in Mengelberg’s recording of the Schubert Ninth comes to mind), it was assumed that the listener would replay the first side of the Scherzo after the Trio side ended, since that side was not included twice in the set.

Mark Obert-Thorn

 

Available as 320kbps MP3, 16-bit FLAC, CD
or listen on demand with Pristine Audio Direct Access (PADA)

---

New MP3 transfers at PADA Exclusives
by Dr. John Duffy
in Ambient Stereo

Mengelberg with the Concertgebouw Mengelberg Bach Concerto for 2 Violins and Strings in D minor, BWV1043 Louis Zimmermann (vln) Ferdinand Hellmann (vln) The Concertgebouw Orchestra Willem Mengelberg  Recorded Amsterdam,  24 June 1935 Mozart Serenade for Strings, No. 13 in G, K.525,  "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" The Concertgebouw Orchestra Willem Mengelberg  Recorded Amsterdam,  November 1942 These two recordings formed the the first side of a multi-disc set entitled "Historical Anthology of Orchestral Music", a collection of historic recordings culled from the library of Thomas L Clear. The Bach was originally issued only in Holland on Decca 78s, whilst the Mozart was a German Telefunken issue. Both are presented here with Ambient Stereo remastering by Dr. John Duffy. Over 400 PADA Exclusives recordings are available for high-quality streamed listening and free 224kbps MP3 download to all subscribers. Remastered by  Dr John Duffy In Ambient Stereo

Download or stream this recording and many others from only One Euro a week!

Hundreds of historic recordings are available for listening and free MP3 download
  to subscribers to PADA Exclusives, our €1/week streamed audio service.

Other subscription offers give you full access to our entire online catalogue

---

Latest review at Musicweb International

Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite Op.60 - Minuet of Lully and Prelude to Act II (Intermezzo) (1918) [3:21 + 3:24]
Salome - Dance of the Seven Veils (1905) - New York recording [8:04]
Salome - Dance of the Seven Veils (1905) - London recording [8:18]
Don Juan, symphonic poem Op. 20 (1888) [15:30]
Der Rosenkavalier - Waltzes (1911) [7:23]
Der Rosenkavalier - Suite (1911) [26:29]
unnamed Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Augmented Tivoli Orchestra/Richard Strauss
rec. 1921-26, London and New York
PRISTINE AUDIO PASC175 [72:38]

Pristine Audio’s disc sub-title tells the story. These are the complete British and American recordings made by Richard Strauss between 1921 and 1926. The first in the sequence came for Brunwick in New York in December 1921 and consisted of four 78 sides. The first two consisted of excerpts from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite, of which the anonymous orchestra’s wind players do well by the Prelude to Act II. The other released performance was the double-sided Dance of the Seven Veils. You do notice the side join here - it’s at 4.03 - but this is mainly because of the harp rallentando and also the change in noise level. But it will perturb no one.

Soon after making these Brunswicks Strauss was in London, in the New Year of 1922, recording with the LSO. The youthful orchestra was in the vanguard of post-War recording and signed with distinguished names, of whom Strauss was but one. The LSO proves a more athletic and suggestive band than the uncredited American orchestra. At the same time they recorded a somewhat cut Don Juan. It’s an invaluable document in that it demonstrates at least relative tempo modifications made by Strauss and suggests in a general way his favoured direction. The recording is, as ever problematic. The violins are frequently underpowered - they could not have been enough in the first place - and there’s a certain muddiness owing to the bass augmentation of the violin line. Still we can hear the solo violin well enough; it’s stalwart W.H. Reed - a fine player. I have some private recordings of his playing and he was a distinguished chamber player, as well as orchestral leader.

Strauss embodied the idea of the no-sweat conductor par excellence and one imagines him in the studio, seemingly unflappable, eyes hooded, left hand in waistcoat pocket. If that’s how he was when he was engaged to recorded the augmented Tivoli Orchestra in the suite from the 1926 film score of Der Rosenkavalier then it wouldn’t in the least surprise me, despite the provisional nature of the London band at his disposal and the rather strange nature of the undertaking. The suite includes orchestral transcriptions. It was recorded in the Queen’s Hall in April 1926 and its status as a pretty early electric is palpable. There must have been a stiffening of tough pros from other London orchestras because despite the fear that we will be listening to sight-reading café players they actually sound pretty well drilled. The circumstances of the recording were straightforward; there had been a (silent) film of Der Rosenkavalier and composer and orchestra went to Queen’s Hall the following day to record this suite. The Presentation March - an addition - sounds like something Beecham cooked up from Handel. As intimated earlier the band has come in for a fair amount of badinage over the years in some quarters but it sounds perfectly acceptable to me and the suite emerges with its tactile, buoyant vitality unscathed; indeed, in its own way, enhanced.

Of the Rosenkavalier Suite there are rival transfers. There’s Koch 1D(1)37132-2 which I’ve not heard and Dutton CDBP9785, which I have. The Pristine is more faithful to the 78 and enshrines a greater weight of shellac hiss. Dutton’s sound is bigger - and more processed.


Jonathan Woolf

Visit MusicWeb International

---

Pristine's Best-Sellers of 2008 - Top Five Downloads of last year

No. 1 -  BEETHOVEN: 9th Symphony
Pristine Audio PASC 120

NBC Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Eileen Farrell, soprano
Nell Merriman, mezzo
Jan Peerce, tenor
Norman Scott, bass
Robert Shaw Chorale

Recorded in Carnegie Hall, New York, 31st March and 1st April, 1952
Released in the UK as HMV LP ALP 1039-40
Restoration & XR remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, July-August 2008
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Arturo Toscanini

Total duration: 65:06

The FLAC downloads:

Toscanini's Classic 1952 Studio Recording

A stunning remastering in both mono and Ambient Stereo!

"I have to admit that I was not at all prepared for what I heard. It seemed to me that by subtle spreading the tone across two channels, you have "filled in" sonic gaps that make the PERFORMANCE - for me - much more valid than any of its monophonic issues. I've often complained of what I heard as a static, station-to-station performance of the 9th in this studio recording. That static quality is, to my ears, completely eradicated by your transformation." Fanfare reviewer Lynn Bayley's reaction to the Ambient Stereo version of this recording

No. 2 - The Quintet & The Trio Live at Massey Hall
Pristine Audio PAJZ 002

Charlie Parker (alto saxophone)
Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet)
Bud Powell (piano)
Charles Mingus (double bass)
Max Roach (drums) 

Recorded live at Massey Hall, Toronto, May 15th 1953. 
Restoration and XR remastering by Andrew Rose, January 2008

Duration 76'46"

The FLAC downloads:

Widely considered the greatest jazz concert ever...

...finally in sound quality that does justice to the playing.
 

The complete recording without overdubs, newly XR-remastered

Notes on this issue

In assembling this release I've tried to bring together all of the available tracks of this historic concert, which has resulted, in the case of the Trio section, in some variation in sound quality. On this recording you will hear only the original recordings, with the bass part as originally played and restored to something closer to an appropriate level by the XR remastering process.

One may ask as to why this concert needs another release? My answer is that, for such a historic recording, all of the previous issues have failed to convey, through their sonic flaws, the full impact of the playing and overall sound. That five men - who'd never rehearsed together or played together as a group, could arrive at a two-thirds-empty hall, missing a saxophone (so playing a plastic one bought that day), half drunk (and more drunk after the interval) with one member on release from a psychiatric hospital, with the two lead players apparently not speaking to each other - can conjure up such magic is incredible. To finally hear it in this quality of sound more than justifies the hours of painstaking work it's taken me to bring this project to fruition. Despite owning copies of this recording for many years, I've heard it anew over the last few weeks, and since its completion it has rarely left my CD player. I hope you'll find similar inspiration from it!

No. 3 - BEETHOVEN Missa Solemnis
Pristine Audio PACO 026

Lois Marshall, soprano 
Nan Merriman, mezzo-soprano
Eugene Conley, tenor 
Jerome Hines, bass
NBC Symphony Orchestra
Robert Shaw Chorale
conducted by Arturo Toscanini

Recorded by RCA in Carnegie Hall, New York on 30-31 March and 2 April, 1953
First issued in the UK in 1954 as HMV LPs ALP 1182-3
Restoration and XR remastering by Andrew Rose, September 2008
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Arturo Toscanini

Total duration: 74:12

The FLAC downloads:

Toscanini's superb 1953 studio recording revitalised

In 21st Century sound quality - especially with Ambient Stereo

Notes on the recording:

Although undoubtedly one of the best-made recordings of Toscanini's lengthy career both with the record companies and with the radio broadcasters, there remain a number of sonic issues which we have attempted to address here, as well as one which we have not.

I'll start with the latter: there is no doubt that in many places the soloists are simply too far back in the mix. Their sound is distant, quiet and at times thin. Alas this is something for which nothing can currently be done, any more than one can un-bake a cake in order to add more sugar. Short of finding a multitrack master tape (which doesn't exist) it's simply not possible to separate out performers and instruments and re-balance the mix, especially when working from a mono source.

What we can tackle are a number of other aspects of the recording: correcting the pitch so that A=440Hz; using XR processing to counteract the tonal shortcomings of the original recording equipment; using the latest amazing digital noise reduction technology to clean up residual tape hiss and noise.

Finally there's what is for me the icing on the cake: Ambient Stereo. Suddenly we hear the sound of Carnegie Hall around us, and the recording finds a true three-dimensional quality. This is not the addition of reverberation or an attempt to make a 'stereo' spread of the recording itself - rather it is the extraction of the natural reverberation as captured in the original recording and the opening of this out onto a stereo soundfield. The effect here is truly sensational.

 

 

No. 4 - The Barber Première Concert
Pristine Audio PASC 080

NBC Symphony Orchestra 
conducted by Arturo Toscanini 

Broadcast live on 5th November, 1938, NBC Studio 8H, New York
Disc One taken from aircheck discs
Disc Two taken from NBC master lacquer discs 
Pristine Audio XR remastering by Andrew Rose, June 2007 

(Duration CD1: 49'42", CD2: 38'43")

The FLAC downloads:

The 1938 Barber Première Concert

CD1: Part One

• Graener: Die Flöte von Sanssouci - only known recording
• Barber: Adagio for Strings - world première performance
• Barber: Essay for Orchestra No. 1, Op. 12 - world première performance
• Debussy: Ibéria

CD2: Part Two

• Dvorák: Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" in E minor, Op. 95

"...a "Barber Premiere Concert" which includes amazingly accomplished world première performances of Barber's Adagio and First Essay, as well as Graener's Die Note von Sanssouci, Debussy's Iberia and Dvorák's New World, the only Toscanini performance that I know of that includes the first-movement exposition repeat..." 
- Rob Cowan, Gramophone, December 2007

 

No. 5 - Louis Armstrong - The Early Years
Pristine Audio PAJZ 006

Louis Armstrong (cornet, trumpet, vocal) 
featuring:
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra
Clarence William's Blue Five
Eva Taylor
Bessie Smith
Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, Hot Seven, Savoy Ballroom Five, his Sebastian Cotton Club Orchestra, his Orchestra

Recorded 1923-40 
Transfers, restoration and XR remastering by Andrew Rose, March 2008 

(Duration 61'34")

The FLAC downloads:

An amazing new approach to acoustic and early electric recordings

Notes on this release

This collection represents the first outing of a new 'variant' of the XR remastering process, tailored particularly for acoustic 78rpm recordings but also very useful in restoring the earliest electric recordings. In this collection we present ten  recordings from the pre-microphone era - recorded directly into a horn - and ten from the so-called 'electric' era of microphone recordings.

By using a specially adapted 'double pass' XR approach I've been able to get much closer to the cleaner finished sound I want using equalisation alone, before bringing in digital noise reduction, whilst simultaneously tackling the problems of horn resonances and very uneven tonal response. Where noise is a huge problem, as on acoustic recordings, this is a real step forward - it allows much better preservation of the musical signal and reduces the risk of producing audible digital noise artefacts in the finished recording.

What's been particularly fascinating about the Armstrong tracks is the realisation that, thanks to the sheer energy and harmonic richness of the brass instruments used, there's much, much more on some of these recordings than one might have expected to find. Normally we see acoustic recordings petering out somewhere between 3500 and 4500Hz, yet in occasional instances of particularly high notes I've detected harmonics right up to 19kHz.

The achievement of the new aspects of XR used for this restoration is to preserve these high harmonics much more effectively than before. Sadly they do generally only exist in the really high-energy instruments when they're playing loudly - we're not suddenly going to unearth CD quality from acoustic horn recordings - but the fact that they're not only possible but clearly audible does suggest that a lot of traditional equalisation of acoustic recordings may have been throwing valuable music content away.