My shipment of these 5 discs showed up recently, so I'm going to try and write little capsule reviews of the discs here as I listen to them, mainly focusing on sound quality and mix because despite being a renaissance man in so many respects, I'm really a neophyte when it comes to classical music.
The shipment I got is actually a second attempt, like a few people here I had some shipments go missing. One in December of 3 classical discs, and one in January of these 5 discs. The good news is that Vocalion/Epoch's have moved to a new shipper (as previously reported) and these replacement discs came very quickly - the shipment of 3 discs which was sent in February took under 3 weeks, and this recent one in March was door-to-door in 10 days. That's 10 actual days, not 10 business days...so at least anecdotally speaking, it seems like shipping woes are behind us.
I've always had great interest in Columbia's classical releases despite not owning any, based on how much I like their rock and pop quads. The thing that put me off ever getting any is that to my mind, sound quality is so important, and with Columbia classical titles you're basically forced to make a Sophie's choice about sound quality, do you go for discreteness at the expense of sound quality with Q8 tape, or sound quality with poor separation on SQ vinyl? For me the answer was neither, so I'm really happy that Dutton Epoch is finally rescuing these old recordings from their poor sound quality shackles.
The other issue for me was that classical recordings seem to be a mixed bag of ambient and discrete, and I think like most people here, I really have no interest in buying stuff that just has ambiance in the rear speakers. I can happily report that the first two titles I auditioned are definitely discrete.
The first one I listened to was
Pinchas Zukerman plays and conducts Vivaldi's Four Seasons / Four Concertos. This disc compiles two albums, one from 1973 and one from 1974. What I was really interested to see was if the Four Concertos portion was discretely mixed, because the original Four Seasons LP actually proclaimed on the cover 'In 360 degree surround sound' whereas the cover (or rear cover) of Four Concertos didn't say anything about the mix.
The mix for both albums ended up being almost exactly the same, and that is to say very discrete for a classical recording. There aren't any 360 degree pans or anything flashy, but the album is aggressively mixed. Zukerman's solo violin is in the front along with some of the higher register strings, with more of the lower register strings in the rear speakers. There's also a harpsichord (I think?) discretely mixed in the rear - on Four Seasons it's in the left rear, and on Four Concertos it's in the right rear.
If you're like me and have a very limited classical knowledge, you'll recognise the music on Four Seasons as the music they use in basically any movie or TV show when they want to indicate the location or character is either posh or educated. Like if it was an 80's screwball comedy and the villain was rich guy and you had an establishing shot of a rolls royce outside a mansion, this is what you'd hear in the background. Or mabye something in a museum, or even a university library. It's very versatile music, haha.
I'm not sure what Vivaldi's other works are like, but based on these two albums, he reminds me in a way of John Williams - it's like variations on one idea, but one idea that's so compelling it easily bears the repetition. Try humming the theme from Star Wars, Superman and Raiders Of The Lost Ark all in a row..they're all so similar that it's nearly impossible, but at the same time so good no one's complaining.
The mix is really effective as well, in the way that it moves from parts that are just solo violin (coming from just the front) in to parts where all the strings join in at once, and with the quad mix it really fills the room with sound - the contrast from 'small' to 'large' is really striking. I felt the music was a little too laid back at times to sustain my interest for a double album, but who am I to tell Vivaldi what to do, haha. The energetic bits were just so striking I wanted more of them. The sound quality is excellent on both, but I thought it was slighly better on the Four Concertos portion - there seemed to be a bit of extra detail in the upper-midrange, so I could really hear and feel the texture of Zukerman's bow against the strings when he played.
I feel like this would be a really good 'entry level' album for someone wanting to buy classical for the first time, it's not overly complex and the melodies are really strong, and also the tracks are all relatively short (between 2.5 and 3.5 minutes generally) so you never have that feeling of getting lost in the middle of some 30 minute long baroque jam session or something.
Also a nice touch that the cover for this release uses the Columbia Quadraphonic 'gold border' cover of the Four Seasons album, I think little details like that should warm any quaddie's heart.
The other album I listened to was
E. Power Biggs' Rheinberger: Two Concertos for Organ and Orchestra. Given that the Biggs 4 Toccatas quad SACD that Sony put out 10 years ago fetches nearly $200 a copy these days on the used market, probably a wise move for Dutton Epoch to put out more of his stuff.
This one was a little more challenging of a listen than Vivaldi, but still very interesting. The best word I could use to describe the music is 'triumphant' - you could imagine it being performed for the monarch of a European country or something to exalt the glory of his rule or something.
The mix again is very discrete, but in a slightly different way than the Vivaldi disc. The Orchestra is entirely in the front two speakers, with generous hall ambiance in the rears - the ambiance sounds like real hall reverb recorded in the venue, rather than a reverb plate or an echo chamber in the mixing studio. When the orchestra swells, the ambiance gives it a real sense of power.
The liner notes for the album say that Biggs played a Moller pipe organ on this album, and judging from Google image search, it looks like the organ has at least 4 keyboards. It sounds like they mic'ed and recorded the output of each of these keyboards seperately, and they've placed them discretely in the quad mix. The main one is up front, but other organ sounds often come from the rear left or rear right, or sometimes both and often at the same time as what's going on in the front speakers. The resulting effect is that Biggs at times sounds like he's got four arms, and when some of these tracks reach their crescendo they're incredibly powerful. There are also a few real sub-shaking bass notes which is pretty cool. The sound quality as usual is excellent, it probably sounds like an oxymoron to say that a recording of classical music doesn't sound like it's 40 years old, but that's definitely the case here.
This album also has a really cool inclusion at the end, in the form of the two tracks from a 7" EP called 'A Mini-Discourse by E. Power Biggs' that originally came with the vinyl version of this album. If you've never listened to this album or are unfamiliar with this kind of music (as I am/was) you could even listen to these two tracks first - it's basically E. Power Biggs himself giving a brief history of the organ concerto, interspersed with recorded examples of what he's referring to. Biggs is an enthusiastic and engaging speaker and the 10 minute history lesson he gives really give you good context for what you're listening to. As a classical moron I really appreciated its inclusion, it was almost like having an audio version of liner notes.
I spoke to Michael Dutton recently and he said they've been really happy with the response to this first batch of classical discs so there will definitely be more. If you like this kind of music I don't think you can go too wrong with these discs, not to mention you'll be voting with your wallet for more.