Decca Sound - The Analogue Years (Decca 4785437)
In the late 1940s, the pioneering Decca recording engineers perfected a new set of microphone techniques that allowed the full range of frequencies to be fully heard by listeners for the first time, and the term ‘full frequency range recording’ was launched. It was a major revolution in sound quality, and the beginnings of high fidelity. Perfected with the birth of stereo in the mid-1950s, Decca’s ‘Full Frequency Stereophonic Sound’ became a worldwide hallmark of sonic excellence and a golden age of classical recorded music was born. The Analogue Years presents a 50-album overview across 54 CDs, in original jackets, of the celebrated international recordings that emerged from the London-based record label in that pre-digital era. The set includes Decca’s first stereo recordings (1954) and special bonus disc of mono versions. Many albums include generous fillers, including some that are first-ever CD releases.
The artists are drawn from among Decca’s superstars of the 60s and 70s: conductors Sir Georg Solti, Bernard Haitink, Zubin Mehta, Antal Doráti, Lorin Maazel, André Previn, István Kertész, Claudio Abbado, Ernest Ansermet and Benjamin Britten; instrumentalists Mstislav Rostropovich, Clifford Curzon, David Oistrakh, Alicia de Larrocha, Kyung-Wha Chung, Radu Lupu, Vladimir Ashkenazy, János Starker, Pascal Rogé and Julius Katchen.
Among the legendary Decca productions included are the Solti Resurrection Symphony, the Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt Beethoven Ninth, the Karajan Otello with Mario Del Monaco and Renata Tebaldi, Puccini’s La bohème with Tebaldi and Carlo Bergonzi, the Solti Verdi Requiem with Sutherland, Horne, Pavarotti and Talvela, Maria Chiara in The Secret of Susanna, the Mehta Planets, Radu Lupu’s Grieg and Schumann Concertos…the list goes on and on.
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