Whats on your turntable tonight?


For me its the first or very early LP's of:
Allman Brothers - "Allman Joys" "Idyllwild South"
Santana - "Santana" 200 g reissue
Emerson Lake and Palmer - "Emerson Lake and Palmer"
and,
Beethoven - "Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major" Rudolph Serkin/Ozawa/BSO
slipknot1
Russ, I absolutely agree about the Malcolm Arnold English Dances, Lyrita SCRS 109. Wilkie nailed this one. It is one of 2 or 3 most natural and accurate representations of a full orchestra in my collection. When people want to understand soundstaging, I pull out this LP. The other LP I bring out is Power of the Orchestra (RCA VICS 2659), also recorded by Wilkinson under contract between RCA and Decca.

For those who may not know: "Wilkie" was Kenneth Wilkinson, recording engineer famous for his work with Decca in the '60s and '70s. His work for Lyrita was freelance and no credits appear on the Lyrita album covers, but he did much of his best work (as in natural sounding, more minimally miked) for that label.
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Correction to the above... Wilkinson's work for Lyrita was apparently not freelance. Lyrita contracted with Decca for their recordings (as did RCA and Readers Digest) and Lyrita's owner, Richard Itter, always requested Wilkinson to engineer the recordings. See this Wikipedia article for more detail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Wilkinson
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Lennox Berkeley: Sextet; Palm Court Waltz - Nash Ensemble - Hyperion A66086 (another masterful engineering job by Anthony Howell)

Debussy: Children's Corner Suite - Michelangeli - DGG 2530 196

Beatles: Mono Masters

Count Basie: One O'Clock Jump - Columbia CL 997
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Copland, Appalachian Spring - Steinberg/PittsburgSO - Command (a really nice performance, well engineered by C.R. Fine in his days post-Mercury)

Beethoven, Serenade in D for flute, violin and viola - Zoeller/Brandis/Ueberschaer - DGG

Bloch, Concerto Grosso No. 1 - Hanson/EastmanRochesterSO - Mercury SRI 75017

Kabalevsky, Major-minor Etudes for Cello & Piano op67 - Ojebo -vc, Zaharieva -pf - Opus 3 7708
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