Any Audiophile recording of The Planets?

My .02 goes to Dutoit and OSM too. Tremendous bass pedal on Saturn. Shakes the room.

The chorus at the end is among the best finales of this piece. And it should be not be rushed, after all the planets take their time; the ponderous tempo of this version emphasizes the mass and mystery of these objects.

Dutoit's version sounds like space, as Holst intended.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about classical to have my opinion taken as anything more than that, but I'll throw in here that my favorite among the versions I own, for both sound and performance, is Boult with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Vienna Academy Chorus on Westminster Natural Balance stereo LP [WST 14067], though I don't know what year this was recorded, seems like probably early 60's.

The Telarc/ASO rcording is superb. Has excellent string tone (not spotlit like many) and balance. Awesome.

I should mention that I have two pressings of the Boult/Vienna, which don't sound equivalent. Both are black labels, but on the one I prefer has "Westminster" in an ellipse above "Stereo" within a blue bar and "Subsidiary of Am-Par Record Co." at the bottom. The one that sounds inferior to me has the Westminster "Big Ben" logo at the top, "Natural Balance" on the sides and "Stereo" in a red field at the bottom with no Am-Par mention. I don't know for sure which pressing is earlier, but the one I don't like as well does have a date in the dead wax: 7/17/59. (It also has the rear panel of the jacket glued on upside-down, though the jackets are otherwise identical.) Could this be a case of a later pressing sounding better? Photos of the labels can be seen on this page, in the ninth and eleventh positions down (don't bother enlisting Google to translate this from Korean unless you have the time to be amused by the resulting gibberish). DG rereleased this recording on CD in their Westminster series, but it's already OOP. Maybe that could sound best of all, because neither of these records seem like they're top-quality pressings or vinyl, though I very much enjoy the sound of the 'blue-bar' version. At least it's cheap if you find it.

Not to take this subject on a tangent but try Manfred Man's Earth Bands renditions of the Planets. A highly overlooked classic in rockroll. This album is great sounding and the music is inspiring. A lot of Moog.