Also, Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol. Kiril Kondrashin, RCA Victor
Symphony Orchestra. JVC JM-XR24013.
Years ago, a reader
took me to task for praising what he considered the unnecessarily high price of
JVC’s XRCD series of audiophile remastered discs. In his opinion, paying
upwards of a dollar a minute for a half an hour’s music was a rip-off. He had,
of course, a point; especially today when you can only find some of these
things used at even more exorbitant prices. These remastered discs from JVC,
FIM, Hi-Q, and others are expensive, and they do not provide any longer playing
times than their counterpart LP’s provided when they first appeared back in the
old vinyl days.
On the other hand,
you get what you pay for. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Bugattis are very
expensive automobiles and generally only seat two people. But if you have the
money and the desire, the cars are worth the price. The cost of the JVC discs
isn’t only in their manufacture, although the packaging they come in is
undoubtedly more costly than an ordinary jewelbox. The price factor comes into
play in the extra time, engineering, and equipment required for JVC to make the
transfers. This isn’t brain surgery. No one is forcing a person to buy JVC’s
remastered discs or anyone else’s. And since their superiority over the regular
product is only slight at best, no one is even recommending that people do so.
But if you want the best, you pay for the best. It’s that simple.
Anyway, moving on.
Kiril Kondrashin had been conducting music for a long time before he struck it
rich accompanying Van Cliburn in RCA’s historic recording of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in May of 1958.
Thereafter, Kondrashin became much better known, especially in America, and
continued to record for many years. Several months after recording the Piano Concerto, RCA asked him to do a
series of recordings for them, one of which is this coupling of Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol. I remember the album
at the time of its release being stunning. Audiophiles considered the LP
version among the best demo fare of the day, and, of course, I couldn’t wait to
get my hands on one, even though I was just in high school at the time and
didn’t really have the money for too many classical records.
Nevertheless, I
bought it, and the LP remained in my collection for many years until it
succumbed to the CD revolution. Foolish me; I figured at the time that
literally all of the great recordings of at least the stereo age would quickly
make it to compact disc. Well, this one took quite a while, and I never did buy
the RCA CD issue. So I have only a memory with which to compare this JVC
remastering.
Frankly, in the
Tchaikovsky Capriccio italien I was
expecting more. JVC’s 2003 XRCD24 remastered disc begins with what sounded
initially to my ears like something much too bright and hard. As the music
continued, I realized that what I was hearing was a very clear, very clean high
end, a fairly transparent midrange, and very little compensating bass.
Kondrashin’s rather slow performance also took me somewhat aback; I remembered
it as being more vigorous and exciting. Yet both the sound and the interpretation
grew on me, and by the last few minutes of the piece, the conductor had,
indeed, built up a good head of steam, and even the sound was showing signs of
low-end response.
The Capriccio espagnol, however, was an
entirely different case. Recorded on the same day as the Capriccio italien and engineered and produced by the same team of
Lewis Layton and Richard Mohr that brought us Fritz Reiner’s great “Living
Stereo” recordings, the Capriccio
espagnol sounds almost entirely different from the Capriccio italien. The
sonics appear smoother, less bright, and more weighty in the bass; and the
performance is exhilarating from the very outset. Go figure. In fact, I’m
willing to say this is the best Capriccio
espagnol currently before the public.
Is the price of the
JVC disc worth the thirty-one minutes of music it holds? Not by any practical
standards I can think of, especially since you can buy the regular RCA edition
new for about five bucks, and it even contains additional music. But is the JVC
disc worth the price if you enjoy it immensely and play it multiple times?
Then, yes, I’d say maybe so, even if the JVC album is practically unavailable
at the moment except used from a limited number of sources. In fact, at the
time of this writing, I noticed somebody at Amazon offering it used for an
asking price of nearly $2,000. If anybody would like to tender that offer for
my copy, I’d be glad to entertain the bid. :)
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:
JJP
