New for October

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 sites. We highly recommend downloading from to Qobuz where you can download or stream in high quality, for the same price as iTunes medium quality. Here are some best selling Beulah albums at Qobuz.

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What the Critics Say

It’s good that these recordings are being made available again to a potentially new audience.

More usually known just as Solomon, Solomon Cutner CBE (1902-1988) was one of the mainstays of the HMV catalogue, having made his first recording in 1929. Following a stroke his career ended in 1956, so these are some of the last recordings that he set down, all with the Philharmonia and with conductors with whom he had a special affinity, especially Herbert Menges.

The Beethoven, which comes from that ideal partnership with Menges, remains one of the best interpretations of this work and confirms my feeling that this is my favourite concerto of the five. It’s full of Mozartian life but it also presages the deeper works which were about to come forth, especially in this sensitive and ethereal account of the slow movement. Though recorded in stereo, there’s little directional effect in this transfer but the recording is otherwise beautifully open and tonally very good indeed for its age.

Also with Menges, the Grieg and Schumann were released together on ASD272. That’s a classic pairing, but so similar are these two works that it’s probably better to separate them, as Beulah have done.

We return to recordings made in 1949 for the Tchaikovsky and Scriabin, when Solomon was at the height of his career. If anything, this virtuoso, but not merely virtuoso, account of the former is the best of these performances and the recording is excellent for its age. The sound could not be mistaken for an LP recording – there’s a small degree of blasting at climaxes and the balance between the soloist and orchestra is not always ideal – but very little tolerance is required.

Read Brian Wilson's full review at Music Web International

"As with his recordings of Haydn’s ‘London’ Symphonies, Sir Thomas Beecham’s performances of the last symphonies of Mozart could hardly pass muster as authentic but they also share the ‘naughty but nice’ quality of his Haydn and I was very pleased to make their acquaintance again in new transfers from Beulah: Nos. 35 (‘Haffner’), 36 (‘Linz’) and 38 (‘Prague’) on 1PS15 [65:34] and Nos. 39, 40 and 41 (‘Jupiter’) on 2PS15 [78:52]. Of the three classic recordings from this period, Karl Böhm, whose Mozart I also like, is a little too stately for many and it’s swings and roundabouts between Beecham and Bruno Walter. With these recordings otherwise available together only in Sir Thomas Beecham: The Classical Tradition, the Beulah releases are very welcome."

Brian Wilson at MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL where you can read the full review

" More Mozart from Beulah with the title Mozart Strings: Serenade No.13 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik), Divertimento in F, K318, and a selection of dances are performed by The Vienna Soloists and Wilfried Boettcher (rec.1961), coupled with the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, K364, recorded for Supraphon by Josef Suk and Milan Skampa with the Czech Philharmonic and Kurt Redel in 1962. These recordings are ADD/stereo and none of them are otherwise generally available.

" I don’t recall hearing these Boettcher recordings, though he directed some of Alfred Brendel’s early Mozart and Beethoven concertos for Vox. These are well focused and sensitive performances, though not quite the equal of the Vienna Octet Mozart recordings from the same period, several of which are also available from Beulah. Best of all for the dance music of Mozart and his contemporaries are the recordings which Willy Boskovsky made with his own Ensemble. The recording sounds very good for its age in this Beulah transfer.

"The classic Sinfonia Concertante performances from this period came from David Oistrakh, with Rudolf Barshai (Artia, long defunct) and with son Igor (Decca, now on Legends E4702582, 2CDs). The recording is less full than from Boettcher and his team but well transferred considering the problems I recall from Supraphon LPs in the 1960s. The performance is another matter. When first released in the UK in 1966 it was dismissed as routine and though I think that rather harsh, this is not Josef Suk at his best and there are other more recommendable performances "

Brian Wilson at MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL where you can read the full review

"A trio of performances on a generously filled album labelled Historic Bruckner is heralded by the Overture in g minor, WAB98, performed by Sir Henry Wood with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra (1937)

"The Overture, of which this seems to be the only extant version, has come up sounding extremely well for its age. The Te Deum, on the other hand, sounds rather crumbly and though Eugen Jochum was a very fine Brucknerian I didn’t derive a great deal of pleasure from it, even with the volume turned down for comfort.

"Eduard van Beinum’s Bruckner is always worth hearing and this is the only generally available single-album offering of the Seventh Symphony: the Eloquence offering of Nos.5, 7-9, takes four CDs. The recording, described as ‘extremely faithful’ in 1953, has come up well enough in this transfer for the listener to appreciate why this ‘authoritative’ performance ‘full of grandeur’ has stood the test of time. Even with over 200 recordings of this symphony, the Beulah is well worth the modest cost of the download for the one work alone."

Brian Wilson at MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL where you can read the full review

"I’m especially pleased to see that one of their first new releases offers the classic recording of Grieg’s Piano Concerto in a minor, Op.16, made by Clifford Curzon with the LSO and Øivin Fjeldstad in stereo in 1959 – still my version of choice despite huge competition from the likes of Leif-Ove Andsnes’ two recordings. The original coupling was a selection from the two Peer Gynt Suites which I missed at the time, having opted for economy by buying the concerto alone on a 10” LP, but which I could wish had been reissued with the concerto. That said, Peer Gynt Suite No.1, Op.46, Two Elegiac Melodies, Op.34 and Symphonic Dances, Op.64, from the Hallé and Sir John Barbirolli (rec. 1958) make a very good substitute, extending the playing time to a very generous 81:09.

"My only reservation is that the transfers are not quite up to the usual Beulah standards, with a degree of tonal insecurity, attributable, I believe to the quality of the original LPs rather than the transfer."

Brian Wilson at MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL where you can read the full review

" This transfer of Launy Grøndahl’s live broadcast recording of The Four Temperaments was my Reissue of the Month when it was released on its own and it’s even more recommendable as part of the new album. at this sounds as if it was ‘sung, played and … directed with love’.

"Grøndahl’s 1951 recording of Symphony No.4 (Inextinguishable), again with the Danish RSO, is available inexpensively from Naxos Classical Archives (9.80540 – Bargain of the Month – DL News 2014/13). For the even more recommendable classic Jensen account of the Espansiva, it’s a question of whether you prefer it with No.2, as here, or with No.4 on a Danacord recording, which is also download only, for much the same price as the Beulah.

"This new release may not boast the best sound – both recordings require some tolerance – but it offers an essential adjunct to modern versions of these symphonies."

Brian Wilson's Recording of the Month at MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL where you can read the full review

" These are classic accounts; if not quite the classic accounts of this music they are all well worth preserving.

"Morton Gould’s first recording of Rhapsody in Blue, released in the UK in 1957, was slightly abridged but this remake is complete and intact. Having been nurtured on Leonard Bernstein’s CBS recording in various incarnations (now on Sony, with American and Piano Concerto) I enjoyed hearing this account of much the same vintage.

"This RCA recording of American in Paris predates Bernstein’s better-known recording on Sony but shares most of the virtues of that later version: it seems to have been released in the USA on RCA Camden in 1958 rather than the stated 1959.

"If anything, I enjoyed Frederick Fennell’s performances of the song transcriptions more than anything else on this album.

"The transfers have been done with Beulah’s usual care but the original LP of Rhapsody in Blue (an RCA rather than a Decca pressing, I understand) seems to have been a slight ‘swinger’, so, unavoidably, the pitch is not totally secure. As this seems to be the only way to obtain the recording in the UK, I’m happy to overlook what is after all a minor irritation. The very fine Mercury recording of Fennell more than atones.'

Brian Wilson at MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL where you can read the full review