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Beulah quoted
"These
are careful transfers which make the most of the material, whereas I
suspect that some others just stick an LP or 78s on the turntable and
give us what comes out the other end. Beulah’s results are comparable
with the fine transfers which Naxos Historical offer. " Brian
Wilson at Music Web International
"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
"Beulah
releases are available from other
suppliers but  ; offer them in
lossless sound for the same price
that others charge for mp3 – in some cases that’s less than full
bit-rate
mp3." Brian
Wilson at Music Web International
Reviewer's Recommendations
David
McDade reviews this album at Music Web International
calling Reiner's conducting "trenchant" and our re-issue as
"sumptuous" He goes on: " It might seem peculiar to describe a
recording that in many ways is an early peak of what might be thought
as the interventionist school of production values as ‘natural
sounding’ but that is what Beulah have pulled off...What the original
engineers sent off to be pressed was presumably what they wanted the
purchaser of the record to hear when the stylus dropped on vinyl. That
is what Beulah have given us here...Beulah have, I believe, done this
recording an immense service by letting listeners hear again what it
must have sounded like on release but not as immense a service as they
have done to those listeners. Bored of endless average Das Lieds? Try
this bracing, dazzling reissue."
Read the
full review.
Next
month we will feature David McDade's review of a performance of Das
Lied
von der Erde conducted by Eduard van Beinum and fetauirng the
wonderful voice of Nan Merriman.
New for March
Many music lovers miss the sound
from vinyl pressings.
Many others have yet to discover how great the sound can be.
Most of our albums are mastered from vinyl LP pressings and earlier
recordings (generally 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 recommending streaming
at where you can download or stream in high quality,
for
the
same price as iTunes medium quality.
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Thitry Years Of Beulah
To
mark our thirtieth
anniversary, each month we will feature
here an album from our back catalogue.
March
In time for Alfred Brendel's 90th
birthday we issued three albums of his early recordings. David McDade
reveiwed all three albums. Here is an extract from his review of
Volume 2
"A first glance at the listing on
this second volume of Beulah’s series of the early recordings by Alfred
Brendel would suggest we are in very unfamiliar territory in terms of
the great Austrian pianist’s usual repertoire.
"It turns out that Mussorgsky’s
collection of curios and grand visions,
based on similarly offbeat paintings by Hartmann, suits Brendel to a
tee. "
"Beulah’s sound throughout
elegantly walks a tightrope between, on the one hand, bright but
brittle and, on the other, resonant but cavernous and booming. In the
Mussorgsky in particular, astonishingly, they find a natural sounding
ambience in which the piano sound sits, which gives proceedings a real
presence. Brendel’s distinctive almost staccato sound is a hard one for
remastering to get right and I think Beulah get it just about spot on."
Read the
full review.
Hear "The Great Gate of Kiev"
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2PS86
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Alfred Brendel Early Years 2
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
Stravinsky Three Movements from Petroucka
Balakirev Islamey
Liszt Harmonies poetiques et religieuses No 1 and No.4
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February
Decca,
in the LP era, was famed
for its sound. Our album of George Szell conducting Brahms has good
examples of the Decca sound with the Piano Concerto recordred in stereo
in London's Kingsway Hall and the Symphony recorded in mono in the
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
Szell
was a perfectionist
and
Curzon was a mercurial pianist. Ken Wilkinson's balance in both
recordings is a revelation. In both venues Wilkinsion had the orchestra
located in the body of the hall rather than on the platform.
Hear
extracts from both
perfomances
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1PS95
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Szell Conducts Brahms
Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor Op. 15 with Clifford Curzon
Symphony No.3 in F Major, Op.90
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January
The first Beulah releases
centred
on recordings made in
London's Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace, located at the top of
Sydenham Hill, had an auditorium that could seat 60,000 people and
accomodtate a choir and orchestra of 3,000.
From 1900 until the building
was destroyed by fire in November 1936 it was the venue for the
National
Brass Band Championships sponsored by railway compaines.
The final event took place just a month before the fatal fire.
Hear
a truncated version
of the
William Tell Oveture from our Brass
at The Crystal Palace album.
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2PD2
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Brass at the Crystal Palace Champions
All the brass band tracks recorded in the Crystal Palace originally
relased on 1PD1 and 1PD2.
Adesta Fideles Meditation, Abide With Me, Death
or Glory, Mandora March, Gleneagles March, Champion Medley Nos 1,2 and
3, May Day Revels, William Tell Overture, Sing a Song, Le
prophete Grand March, Messiah Amen, Severn Suite, Downland Suite,
Kenilworth
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