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"The Beulah
record label has always been one of the most idiosyncratic, and
therefore perhaps most interesting, of reissue marques. While the basic
character of Beulah remains the same as in its Compact Disc days, the
range of its present catalogue, driven now by the ease of downloading,
has been extended in remarkable fashion. Browsing the Beulah catalogue
is now rather like being in a 78rpm record shop: there are plenty of
recordings of short pieces available to whet your appetite for either
repertoire or artist, while at the same time there are numerous full
length works available if you wish to consolidate your collection with,
for instance, major symphonies. All of Beulah's transfers, as might be
expected of a distinguished reissue label, are of very high quality."
David Patmore writing in Classical
Recordings Quarterly
"I’m grateful to Beulah for turning out so many very fine transfers,
with no loss of the music but none of the surface noise. LP sound
without the hassle. " Brian
Wilson at Music Web Inernational
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Britsh Music at Beulah
In
June 1979 a small group of people (including Beulah's founder), with a
passion for British music, met under the chairmanship of Peter
Middleton, to discuss how such music may become better known. At that
time, apart from a few favourites, very little British Music was
broadcast or recorded. The meeting ended with the formation of the British Music Society.
New for July
Many music lovers miss the sound
from vinyl pressings.
Many others have yet to discover how pleasant the sound can be.
Most of our albums are mastered from vinyl LP pressings and earlier
recordings (before 1953) from 78 rpm discs. It is our ability to
recreate, in the digital age, the sound from the disc era that many of
our customers find most enjoyable.
Unlike modern digital recordings
tracks in our
albums do contain some distortion, and the occasional surface noises,
but for many listeners these "defects" are soon forgotten.
Our albums are available from
many download and
streaming sites.
We highly
recommend downloading from  where you can download or stream in high quality, for
the
same price as iTunes medium quality.
New albums
What the Critics Say
"...why am I even bothering to review this Beulah
reissue? Firstly, because Bruckner thought the Eighth was his
masterpiece, yet it was not highly regarded when I started to be
interested in recordings of his music. Then it was only the Fourth that
tended to receive the limelight – my first recording of that was a
mid-price Vox reissue of the Klemperer VSO recording on a single LP in
atrocious sound. It was not until much later that I caught up with the
Eighth, from Eugen Jochum’s DG recording.
"Secondly, because Barry Coward has waved his usual
magic wand over what was never the best of recordings, even by the
standards of 1956; Philips were lagging well behind Decca at the
time.As always, I recommend obtaining this and other Beulah recordings
from Qobuz where, for the same £7.99 as from elsewhere, the downloads
are available in the same quality as my lossless previews.
"Mostly, however, I’m very pleased to welcome this
reissue because van Beinum had a real knack for conducting Bruckner.
Where Jochum thought in paragraphs in an attempt to make the music
appeal to more listeners, Beinum thought in chapters and still made the
music appeal. The chapters are long, but we never lose sight of the
end. And though the effect is to sound leisurely, with the music given
plenty of time to expand and breathe, it never drags. That’s also due
to the quality of the orchestral playing. If you have access to the
Qobuz streaming service, try the opening of the scherzo for a good idea
of the quality of the direction and the playing; there’s a real sense
of enjoyment almost allowed to get out of hand before a more thoughtful
mood prevails.
"Overall, despite the appearance of breadth, Beinum
comes in ten minutes shorter than most other recordings, though he
employs the Haas edition of the original, not Bruckner’s slightly
abridged revision.
" Not having heard this van Beinum recording before,
I’ve now found a
version of the Eighth to add to those few that go on to some purpose.
It’s straightforward, with no gimmicks, but it’s not boringly
straightforward. With Beulah giving this idiomatic account to us in
very decent sound and at an attractive price, I see no reason to hold
back. "
Brian Wilson at Musicweb
International
...
"No, that’s not the Ronald Binge Elizabethan
Serenadebut some of Julian Bream’s ground-breaking recordings on solo
lute and with his eponymous consort. Styles change and neither the solo
nor the consort music would be thought authentic now, but Bream’s
recordings from this period remain enjoyable and interesting. Like all
his output, they have remained only fitfully available on CD, so I’m
pleased to have snapped most of them up when they were available in the
RCA Julian Bream Edition.
Even the multi-CD box set has gone, so the Beulah release is very
welcome.
"Where the Beulah selection scores over all these is
in presenting the lute music alongside the consort music, alternating
on the first 15 tracks, with the rest devoted to Bream alone.On the
other tracks, some of the consort pieces such as Can she excuse my
wrongs?are made to sound almost like jazz."
Brian Wilson at Musicweb
International
"Can recordings of Telemann from the early 1960s
still sound
stylish? The first three items first appeared in 1963 on the Cantate
label and were joined on the super-budget Oryx label (£0.99) a decade
later. Not only was that reissue excellent value –though the
equivalentpricenow would be over £20 –the performances still sounded
fine and they still do. Of course, there’s much more Telemann available
now, with multi-CD releases from the likes of CPOalmost everyday
occurrences, but I enjoyed the German Bach Soloists as much more than a
blast from the past.
"The Triple Concerto, TWV53:E1, is familiar from
more recent
recordings, most recently from Florilegium on a Channel Classics
recording which failed to appeal to Johan van Veen. He was rather more
satisfied with the CPO recording on Volume 1 of their series of
Telemann grand concertos for multiple instruments.
You might expect direct comparison of the older recording on Beulah
with the CPO to be a hands-down win for the newer version; in fact,
though I liked the CPO better than my colleague, I’d find it hard to
callthe scorebetween the two.In particular, the first movement is taken
at a more andantepace on the older recordingwhilethe
performancesthroughout the CPO are a little easy-going."
"The recording of the Hamburger Ebb’und Fluth,
commonly known
as his Water Music, presumably comes from a Concert Hall LP, conductor
David Josefowitz’s own company. I take the Paris Baroque Orchestra to
have been a scratch ensemble.
" Again, the playing is much sprightlierand more
stylish than I
had expected, even by comparison with
Reinhard Goebel’s recording, the speed merchant toning down his
impetuosity here, even in the final canarie representing the jolly
boatmen. I wouldn’t recommend the Beulah as my first choice, but it can
stand comparison with my favourites from the King’s Consort (Hyperion
CDA66967) and the Akademie für alte Music Berlin (Harmonia Mundi
HMC901917)."
Brian Wilson at Musicweb
International
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