[78-L] Khachaturian

[DAVID BURNHAM]

Reminding us that it wasn't only The Beatles that Capitol's engineers dumbed 
down. Ever hear an American pressing of Khachaturian conducting Gayaneh? The 
English pressing is very difficult to track, but the American remastering is 
unlistenable. Then they'd louse them up even more for Seraphim reissues.

dl


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The inferiority of American or Canadian reissues of English recordings has 
always been a bug-a-boo with me; and just as bad is the CD reissues of English 
recordings.  I think I could write a small book on the number of CDs which are a 
travesty compared to their Vinyl counterparts.  The main consistency is the lack 
of deep bass on the CDs - strange, considering that the CD has no low end 
limitation.  So many of the English Choral recordings and orchestral recordings 
involving organ have the 32 foot region of the organ filtered out.  If you have 
the recordings, just compare the EMI LP and CD of Vaughan-Williams 7th Symphony 
or Holst's Choral Symphony, both conducted by Boult.  Another travesty was 
Schwarzkopf's Christmas record; not only is the bass filtered off but in "Silent 
Night" on the LP she sings an over-dubbed duet but the second voice is missing 
on the CD.  I suspect this is because the CD was mastered from experimental 
stereo tapes which didn't contain the second voice.  I could go on and on, 
(perhaps you think I already have).

But getting back to Khachaturian, wasn't that a Decca recording with the Vienna 
P.O. with Spartacus on the other side?  I never saw this LP in anything but an 
English pressing.  Or is there also an EMI version which I'm not aware of?

I never really thought the Beatles recordings suffered too much in their Capitol 
versions.  The Capitol album "Twist and Shout", which was similar to, but not 
identical to "Please Please Me" on Parlophone always struck me as being superior 
in sound on the American version.

db